Before you can decide to change the behavior of hoarding you have to understand how "keeping things" is helping you or functioning for you.

The behavior may seem meaningless in the midst of hating oneself for not being able to change. Sometimes the function of one's hoarding is hard to see when you are in the middle of it. A useful tool to elucidate the hidden payoffs of hoarding is the Cost-Benefit- Analysis. The following is a series of helpful hints with this tool because it is so vital to determining one's motivation, ability, and desire to change.

Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. On one side write all the advantages of hoarding and on the other side write all the disadvantages of hoarding. This may seem overly simple or you may say that you can find no advantages to hoarding. An example of what a made up client might say with prompting in a physician's office.

Advantages:

Don't have to make any decisions right now

Don't have to feel any uncomfortable feelings such as fear ofregret or loss

I can do something more fun

I piss off someone in my family who I am angry with, but still appear innocent (unintentional but desired revenge to someone who has wronged me)

I stay dependent and connected to someone I love

People know something is wrong with me and take care of me

I become the problem in my family and distract from an even biggerproblem going on (IE. depressed mother focuses on daughter's hoarding instead of bad marriage that could potentially break the family apart)

I hold onto memories, I have instant access to the past

It is safe in some way

It feels familiar, I wouldn't know how to act or be without it

It's my way of resisting a controlling person in my life

Now do the same thing with the disadvantages. These are usually easier and more straight forward.

After exhausting this list of advantages and disadvantages (you might enlist others you feel comfortable with to brainstorm with you to make sure you haven't forgotten any), you are ready to rate the disadvantages compared to advantages.

If you were balancing the two on a scale, given not just the quantity but the severity and quality of the listed points, which would be stronger the disadvantages or the advantages.? 50/50 70/30 or 5/95? Be brutally honest using your intellect and emotions.

If the disadvantages of hoarding out weigh the advantages..... congratulations you are ready to change and most likely will with proper effort, time, and support.

If in being rigorously truthful you find the advantages outweigh the disadvantages don't despair... you have discovered a very helpful insight which will steer you on the proper path to recovery. You have discovered that the hoarding is your solution to a life problem. Now your task is not to tackle the problem of hoarding but to first to find a new solution to your true problem.

This should not be used in place of psychological/psychiatric care or evaluation.
*Source of this information