Acquiring Things: Strange Cases of Compulsive Hoarding

Abstract

Why has compulsive hoarding recently captured the American imagination? To what extent is hoarding a subtype of OCD or a discrete "disorder" in its own right? Can a cultural-studies and philosophical assessment of hoarding complement the medical model that has recently been offered by clinicians and the DSM IV? This essay tracks these and related questions in order to offer a theory of compulsive hoarding that pays particular attention to the sometimes distorted representation of hoarding in literature and the mainstream media.

Expert commentary and author response relating to case study in issue 24(2) pp.251-255 – ‘Ethical issues of allowing self-care home peritoneal dialysis in the presence of hoarding’ by Maria O’Shaughnessy

“…Like every “expansion” of mental disorders, also the medical model of compulsive hoarding has been the subject of an important critique. (1) However, it is considered a serious condition that also affects patients with end-stage renal disease. (2)…”

Mental distress under Occupation: The journal of Madeleine Blaess

“…Hoarding could be viewed as a pathological analogy for Blaess’s meticulously comprehensive logging of everyday trivia. Certainly, it would appear to map onto definitions of hoarding as an attempt to (re)gain control by removing objects from temporality, from history and to ‘immortalize the present’ in the face, one would suppose, of fear of the everyday and fear of the future (Cefalu, 2015: 224). The hoarding analogy articulates as a pathology Stone’s idea of the diary writer trying to stop the disorientating, saturating flow of external stimuli by writing everything down.…”

How Code Enforcement Mitigates Hoarding in the Community

“…A cleanup is usually not wanted by the hoarder and can lead to criticisms and arguments over belongings, which can cause emotional issues (Martinez, 2013). People who hoard believe that any item can be put to good use and have an inability to categorize objects appropriately (Cefalu, 2015).…”