Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding: Why You Save & How You Can Stop

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Summary: This book saved me from eviction
Review: A few months ago, I was given 30 days to get my apartment to the point that it was not a fire and health hazard. I have struggled all of my adult life with hoarding and compulsively buying everything imaginable. I could barely even walk around in my place. I have read many other books, had professionals come in and "organize me", taken medication, been in therapy and nothing worked until I got this book. Not only have I gotten the physical clutter under control, my life is less cluttered and my quality of life has drastically improved. A must read for hoarders and friends and relatives of hoarders

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Summary: This book saved my life!
Review: Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding saved my life! It's the first book I have read that accurately addresses why I hang onto things and why I can't let them go. I have had to deal with clutter all my life. I have felt shame and been hard on myself until I read the book. The invaluable insights in this book have helped me to clear the clutter. Once I know why I'm hanging onto something it's much easier to let go of it! Other organizational books have not worked for me because the books assume I have no emotional obstacles to becoming organized. This book is a must-read! I am very pleased with this book and recommend it to anybody, hoarder or non-hoarder, who has difficulty with clutter and organization.

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Summary: Unique but flawed
Review: There is no other book like this. I have seen people who suffer from compulsive hoarding and how hard it is for them to even recognize what affects them and their families. This short book was long overdue. The authors are certainly knowledgeable. They enlisted some of the best authorities in the field. Yet this book is a major disappointment. The ingredients were all there but all is lost. They miss key points about the nature of hoarding.

They do mention well-known cognitive strategies (all or nothing thinking, overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions and others). They try to apply them in "flash cards" of the kind "I am a loser because my house is such a mess". Yet most hoarders do not feel this way. They feel attached to their possessions, they can't throw them away. They do not see themselves as losers per se, but strangely attached to things that they know they must depart from but that they can't.
The authors use "flash card" with statements such as "I can't throw away these plastics bags" to be put against "should statements" and "jumping to conclusions". Yet the real thing behind what hoarders feel is not what these techniques show. The real thing is called fear. These techniques do not address them.

Later in the chapter, "cleaning the clutter", a lot of time is devoted to tell hoarders that they should separate their stuff in the categories save, discard and handle immediately. A typical hoarder will put most of his/her stuff back in the save! The authors ask them to apply cognitive strategies explained in an earlier chapter without actually going through them for each type of possession and addressing the fear that hoarders feel. A great technique used by psychologist Foa (E/RP, exposure with response prevention) is only later applied to acquiring and not to discarding. So anxiety levels will still be high while discarding since the fear is not directly addressed by the typical cognitive strategies. Decision making is a key issue and apart from the general cognitive strategies, little else is done in this to book to help.

There are clear contradictions as well:
- In page 116, it says "if a magazine was printed six or more months ago, you should probably recycle or discard it. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, like a newspaper that features a story about something dear to you" (a hoarder will certainly find that 95% belongs to this category!).
- In the next page it says, "it is better at the beginning to go to an extreme and discard all magazines and newspapers until your hoarding behaviors are under better control. Then, if you can throw out newspaper daily, there will be no need to keep them around for six months."
--> To keep it for 6 months or not to keep it?? To discard all or not to? Two pages are devoted to newspaper and magazines, things that most hoarders keep. And in two pages, a few contradictions are offered to whom can't make a decision easily.

What is most sad is that this book could be of great help since there is simply no other book in the market devoted to compulsive hoarding alone. But, with these serious flaws, little hope is unfortunately there.