Research Paper On Hoarding

INTRODUCTION
Hoarding reality shows may make for good TV, but hoarding makes for miserable families. (Tolin, 2008, pp. 334-344) Aside from the notoriety very little research has been done to until the last 15-20 on what is now being officially called a disorder. Reflecting the new thinking produced by the more recent research Hoarding Disorder has been added to the newest diagnostic manual - the DSM-V. (Butcher-Hooley & Mineka, Butcher, J., 2014, p. 206) Often hoarders are presented as people who have just 'given up', or people who can't let go, or poor souls who can't buy 'just one' of anything. Hoarding takes on many forms, all resulting in the same outcome. There are junk hoarders -the ones who cannot NOT brake for garage sales, trash on
the side of the road, or dumpsters. There are the 'shopping hoarders', the 'collectors', the 'food hoarders', the 'trash hoarders', and the animal (almost exclusively cats and dogs) hoarders. Surprisingly, people living with a compulsive Hoarding Disorder hoard ordinary, not often considered collectable, items. It is not unusual for hoarders to amass mounds and pounds of items - over time - most of us would discard as a regular course of living within our environment. Things like garbage, kinds and types of paper (most often, but not limited to newspapers and junk mail), plastic shopping bags, plastic storage containers (large and small), cardboard and Christmas wrapping paper. Found in hoarders homes in nearly every nook and cranny are plastic containers, clothing items or even a refrigerator or freezer (or multiples) of rotten, out-of-date food items. The more severely entrenched hoarders stockpile something that seems repulsive, even vile, to most - human feces. (Pertusa, Fullana, Singh, Alonso, Menchón, & Mataix-Cols, 2008, pp. 1289-1298) We see or read about them and we feel disgusted, first; then feel sad for them in their situation.
Hoarding differs from being, say, a collector, a clutter-bug, or just a pack rat in that the volume and items aren't just something they show off, or have too much of.
NO, for hoarders there are no stacked boundary lines for where their 'collections' live and where the people live. Hoarders coexist with 'things and stuff' that has taken on a life of their own and taken over theirs. Maybe it lies in the difficulty of making decisions to keep or to discard, or in being able to even see the chaos, or the depression that sometimes comes from looking at such a monumental task. (Dozier & Ayers, 2014, pp. 220-227) Hoarding homes and hoarding lives are filled with more than 'stuff'. These are walls that have often become filled up with secrets and shame; anxiety hangs in the air and anger sits just under the trash. The dust and cobwebs hide guilty feelings over throwing out some useful item they may need someday. These emotions literally are the insulation and mortar that fill the little bits of spaces not filled with 'stuff'. Hoarders (and sometimes their family members) sit in small spaces filled with huge feelings of hopelessness - overwhelmed and over-run. (Tolin, Frost, Steketee, & Fitch, 2008, pp. 334-344) Their 'things' have taken them over; their families have left or stepped back and disengaged. It can be toxic – literally, but also relationally and emotionally. It can eat away at healthy social exchanges and engagements, gobble up emotions and health, devour finances and bar the door to family
members.
Rarely does the home of a hoarder function any longer as a house, never mind a home. In the worst cases there are no rooms, no visible floors, no yards, no breathable air, no clean plates, no beds…no life. As the diagnosis indicates, their lives have experienced a disruption in all the important facets and fabrics of living at all; a direct result of their hoarding behaviors.
Most of us marvel at how they can even live; becoming curious voyeurs of the 'train wreck' they call their lives.
This paper will offer thoughts on how hoarders they have gotten to where they are today – how they think and operate daily. It will offer observations and information regarding the etiology of hoarding, consider the criteria for diagnosing this disorder, and present possible differential diagnoses. It will go on to propose both secular and Christian treatment options and conclude with a hoarder’s prognosis for living a more ordered life. Watch your step!