Hoarding Disorder

I attended a great piece of training today which I wanted to share.  As an ever increasing issue and one that has only just been recognised by NICE as seperate to OCD; Hoarding Disorder is different to Hoarding. With the disorder comes great anxiety at the thought of having to let any of the hoard go. It was enlightening to learn about the vast array of things a person can hoard; from animals, clothes and dolls to electrical goods, books and rubbish, to name a few.

I learnt about the three main thrusts of hoarding;

ACQUISITION; Buying or collecting too many things

COMPULSIVE SAVING; Not being able to throw things away due to belief they have an importance or hold a memory

DISORGANISATION; Mixture of important and unimportant things with no discernable structure

As we moved through the day we explored why a person may hoard and as vast as the things a person chose to hoard were the reasons they may do it.  It appears as another behaviour a person may use to cope with something difficult.

Many of the approaches taken to address a person’s hoarding actually prove more damaging than supportive.  The compulsive clear out, often enforced by the local authority or environmental health, may cause great distress to the person hoarding as their posessions are rifled through and disguarded.  What is often observed is that the property is soon refilled with things. This is because the underlying issue that is fuelling the hoarding has not been acknowledged or treated.

We discussed the approaches that do have effective outcomes and one of those treatments was CBT.  We further explored the approach CBT takes with this disorder and I felt confident this was something I could deliver.

So if you or anyone you know is struggling with Hoarding Disorder and lives in London, get in touch. ‘Lets take a journey to a new understanding’

With thanks to Mosaic Training and Consultancy for the training.

www.mosaic-training.co.uk