Welcome to our informal survey about extreme hoarding. Thank you for taking a few minutes to complete this brief survey. We will make the results available to you if you’d like. Just let us know at the end of this survey.

Why are we doing this survey? Every day, BERGFELD’s receives calls and e-mail from people throughout the country who are asking for resources and guidance about problems of advanced and extreme hoarding - their own, their client's, a friend’s, a family member’s, or a neighbor's. Currently, there is only limited information about local resources available from public agencies, care managers, and private professionals to help people burdened by this serious condition. BERGFELD's is expanding our services to help those who contact us by directing them to available resources throughout the U.S.A. This survey will help.

Over recent years, BERGFELD's has worked with more than 60 “extreme hoarders” whose hoarding is “the accumulation of and failure to discard excessive numbers of possessions … to the extent that living spaces can’t be used for their intended purposes … and it causes distress and decline in health and wellbeing.” (BERGFELD’s paraphrase of definitions by research experts Gail Steketee, PhD and Randy Frost, PhD.)

Go to Survey

TMZ show interview with Delta Burke.

She said:

*Been hoarding since she was 18
*It's a comfort to her...like she guesses the way food comforts people
*Says she keeps even "stupid things"
*She has 27 storage units
*She is learning why she does it, she doesn't understand *why* she
does it but it is very clear that
SHE HATES HATES HATES BEING A HOARDER.
*She was trying not to cry as she has never talked to anyone about it
before but said "I know this is what I need to do to get better."

Delta Burke admits to having Compulsive Hoarding Disorder

SLAMDANCE DIRECTOR INTERVIEW:
CYNTHIA LESTER, MY MOTHER'S GARDEN

Director returns to Slamdance, this time with a film 'My Mother's Garden'
Kristina Eastham, Of the Record staff
Article Launched: 01/18/2008

Posted on Mon, Apr. 23, 2007

MEETING IN TOPEKA

Hoarding problem gets state attention

BY DEB GRUVER
The Wichita Eagle

Because depression is so common with hoarding, we thought this information would be of interest-COHAdmin.

NMHA News Release
September 14, 2006

Diverse New Coalition Launches Education Campaign
To Counter Misconceptions About Depression  

 WASHINGTON, D.C.—Frustrated and concerned by popular misconceptions that trivialize depression as “just the blues” or dismiss it entirely as an “imaginary disease,” seven prominent physician, patient and civic nonprofit organizations have joined together to launch a public education campaign to tell Americans the truth about depression. The Depression Is Real Coalition seeks to educate Americans that depression is a serious, debilitating disease that can be fatal if left untreated and to provide hope for recovery to the nearly 19 million Americans who suffer from depression each year.

The Depression Is Real public education campaign is sponsored by The American Psychiatric Foundation (a philanthropic and educational subsidiary of the American Psychiatric Association), the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Medical Association, the National Mental Health Association and the National Urban League and is made possible through the support of Wyeth.

“Our research shows that many Americans don't realize that depression is a biologically-based disease:mdash;in fact, a third of all Americans believe that mental illnesses like depression are caused by emotional or personal weaknesses, and almost that number think they are caused by old age alone,” said Altha J. Stewart, MD, President of the American Psychiatric Foundation. “We believe we have a responsibility to tell the public the truth about depression—one based on scientific evidence and clinical research, not made-up ‘facts’ or wishful thinking.”...

BY PAULA M. FELIPE/Public Safety Reporter

Butte County Public Health specialists are leading a coordinated effort with the county's Department of Social Services and Behavioral Health to help those with an obsessive compulsive disorder known as 'compulsive hoarding.'

Compulsive hoarders have a very hard time throwing things away, such as old newspapers and paper clips to used food containers and magazines, which are often piled from floor to ceiling. Some hoarders provide reasons that reveal good intentions, but compulsive hoarding causes all kinds of suffering, anxiety, anguish, isolation, health problems and hazards, according to Nursing Supervisor Alice Kienzle of the Butte County Public Health Department....(read more below)