Facts About OCHD: Obsessive Compulsive Hoarding Disorder

Compulsive Hoarding Disorder can be characterized in two parts of a whole: (1) the accumulation of physical things that have little or no value, and (2) the difficulty in discarding these accumulated things. Among the most common things that are collected are newspapers, mail, lists, and notes. Compulsive Hoarding Disorder is said to be interconnected and/or related to other disorders, including depression, social anxiety, and bipolar disorder. It may also be seen in patients who exhibit anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia, dementia, and other psychotic disorders. When seen in conjunction with other diseases, it is most often seen alongside Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. Compulsive Hoarding Disorder may run in families.

Compulsive hoarding may be caused by problems in the following areas: information processing, beliefs about possessions, and emotional distress about discarding possessions. In information processing, people may have difficulty remembering and knowing what to do about their possessions. Exaggerated belief in the value of possessions means that people may think of their possessions as an indispensable part of them, even if their possessions amount to nothing more than a pile of torn newspapers or paperclips. Emotional distress from discarding possessions also comes from having unnecessary value attached to them, and hence the possessor may have anxiety and worry when discarding his or her possessions. People with compulsive hoarding disorder may also have difficulty socializing, as they are concerned about the embarrassment their often immense clutter could cause. Compulsive hoarding can be said to eventually lead to isolation because of this embarrassment.

Negative personality traits associated with compulsive hoarding include indecisiveness, perfectionism, avoidance, anxiety, and poor skills at socializing. Poor socializing skills is more likely to be a result of compulsive hoarding rather than a characteristic of it, as clutter from compulsive hoarding is very likely to cause embarrassment to its victim.

Research has shown that people with Compulsive Hoarding Disorder have differences in brain activity from other people. Compulsive hoarders have less brain activity in the parts of the brain involved with self-motivation, selection, attention, self-control, decision-making, and visual processing. Some of the parts of the brain that are afflicted indicate that Compulsive Hoarding Disorder may be a distinct variant of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. Specific drugs treating neurologically- or psychologically-based disorders are therefore justified in treating Compulsive Hoarding Disorder.

Psychologically speaking, compulsive hoarding can be treated with behavior techniques. In fact, CBT (cognitive behavioral techniques) are found to be the most effective for treating Compulsive Hoarding Disorder. However, medicine is often still necessary to be used in conjunction with CBT. Compulsive hoarders are often taught to discard the unnecessary belongings which they value gradually, perhaps until there is no more anxiety with possessing these belongings. Prescribed medicine is recommended for more severe compulsive hoarding disorder, and these may require some expertise to use sufficiently. Some antidepressant drugs used for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder may be used for Compulsive Hoarding Disorder.

The personalities of compulsive hoarders themselves may hinder the treatment given to cure them. They tend to be perfectionists, and may agonize over decisions on whether or not to discard selected items. By procrastinating and refusing to make immediate decisions on whether or not to discard their items, compulsive hoarders simply leave their items to stay and collect dust until even previously valuable items are worthless to everyone but the Hoarding victim.