Read Introduction to Hoarding.(pdf)
Read Hoarding 101.(pdf)
Read Hoarding from the Inside Out.(pdf)
Read How & When to Intervene (pdf)

Great overview of Compulsive Hoarding & San Francisco Resources by MHA-SF:

“Overwhelmed by Too Much Clutter”,
a booklet on compulsive hoarding that people who hoarder can use to get an overview of information about compulsive hoarding including legal rights and a list local San Francisco agencies and services available for people who compulsively hoard.

Take this short quiz of the basics, from nurses.com

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:
Children Who Hoard

 Research into hoarding explores a dilemma that touches families and communities everywhere. Aired October 22, 2007

Hoarding: Health Story-Online video, featuring Dr. Randy Frost

Dorothy Daley is one of the millions of compulsive collectors who have an obsessive need to hoard things. "It's depressing and frustrating. I feel pushed into a corner," Dorothy says. Randy Frost, PhD and a professor at Smith College in Northampton, researches why people take saving to an extreme. "When it becomes painful to bring someone into the home, this leads to isolation, depression and shame," says Randy. There is help available for those who hoard in the form of monthly support groups and clutter coaches like Beth Johnson who asks her clients, "What would your emotional state be if you parted with this item?" Having someone there helps keep collectors on track. "Hoarding sometimes relates to memory and people feeling that if they don't keep something, they won't remember it," says Randy. Some collectors are perfectionists. Others have security and control issues. "If I uncluttered, I would be freer, happier," says Dorothy.

Clutter Genetics

Original Air Date: June 8, 2007

Did you inherit your messy, disorganized way of living from your parents or is it something you picked up on your own? To discuss the topic of "clutter genetics," Peter talks with Dr. Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and author of the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and Dr. David Tolin, an expert on compulsive hoarding and author of Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding.

Reported June 25, 2007

Compulsive Clutter -- In-Depth Doctor’s Interview

Sanjaya Saxena, M.D., Psychiatrist, explains what compulsive clutter is and how a new study using SRI’'s can reduce the anxiety and distress in patients suffering from it...

Messies.com had a teleclass for Hoarders, Family & Friends on June 18, 2007.  Listen to it for free (for one week) below:

From their website:
Help for Hoarders, Families and Friends

Dr. Neziroglu also has a special desire to help family members learn how to help their loved one who hoards, to get them to at least the first step of help. She wants the family to know that there is hope and where to find it.  We had an informative and helpful conversation with Dr. Nez., the author of the very practical and insightful book, OVERCOMING COMPULSIVE HOARDING on our most recent teleclass on July 17th.

If you missed that teleclass you can hear the unedited recording of that class by using the player below.

Causes, management of hoarding to be discussed

The speaker will be Dr. Alexandra Matthews, a cognitive behavioral psychologist in private practice in Mill Valley, and a member of the clinical faculty of the University of California at San Francisco's Department of Psychiatry.

The event is set for 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the conference room of Marin General Hospital at 250 Bon Air Road.

For more information, call 444-0480.

People who hoard apparently useless items may be able to blame an area of their brain, say US researchers.

"The more we can start to understand about the neurobiology of hoarding the more we can start to think about targeting treatments accordingly."
But Professor Paul Salkovskis from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Knowing which area of the brain is affected does not help you in treatment one little bit.
"Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem.
"At this point there is no evidence that there is any biological difference between these patients.
"The answer is cognitive behavioural therapy." ...

April 24, 2007 11:35 a.m. PT

Learn the difference between pack rats and hoarders
By DR. JOYCE BROTHERS

Books About Hoarding

Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding.
See Review.

Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring
Therapist Guide

Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring
Workbook/Paperback

Buried in Treasures:
See the chapters here. 

More book recommendations

June 17, 2006
Applied Neurology

Hoarding entails both an active component (collecting) and a passive one (failure to discard). One or both components may be present in a compulsive hoarder. Many hoarders-particularly those with OCD-show both features. Some hoarders have difficulty in discarding things because of their indecisiveness, others because of their emotional attachment to their possessions. As Frost points out, hoarders "apply emotions to a range of things that others would consider worthless. Where most people see an empty roll of toilet paper, they see art supplies."8 Still others fail to discard items because of executive dysfunction and other cognitive deficits that make it difficult to organize their belongings and distinguish between items they need and those they don't. Not uncommonly, hoarding in the context of dementia takes this form. Effective management of hoarders requires that clinicians identify patients who accumulate clutter as a result of cognitive deficits and address both the clutter and the primary condition. ...

Compulsive hoarding--a lot more than just being messy...

May/June 2006

Inside the World of the Compulsive Hoarder
By Matthew Robb, MSW, LCSW-C
Social Work Today
Vol. 6 No. 3 P. 27

It's not just a matter of excessive collecting—compulsive hoarding can be a life-threatening behavior.

When is it Clutter & When is it Hoarding?
Dr. Amie Ragan

Information Hoarding...

The clutter challenge: A sea of stuff surrounds us; do we sink or swim?

"My therapist used to call it the three p's ---- perfection, procrastination and paralysis," said Fischer, who says her attention-deficit disorder and low self-esteem may also play a part.

Read the story here.

Taking Out the Trash

SSW prof’s new book aims to help compulsive hoarders

Are you a compulsive hoarder? Visit the amazon.com page for Buried in Treasures and fill out this questionnaire.

Hoarding

This year, at least one person was trapped under an avalanche of their own clutter. Now, research suggests that people like this—compulsive hoarders—have distinct brain abnormalities. This ScienCentral News video has more.

Love of stuff is choking us

Hoarding is an obsession that takes over lives

“Hoarding’s likely both a social and biological process,” said Geral Nestadt, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, in a hospital publication.
“The biological basis for it exists and may surface in one’s teens, but then, I believe, a person’s family discourages the ‘overenthusiastic collecting.’ In later years, if that person lives alone, the behaviour gets full expression.”

December 2006

Call to Collect
As Understanding of Hoarding Grows, So Does the Scope of the Issue

Dr. Randy Frost says hoarding is a health care issue — one that is far more prevalent than most would believe.

By Jaclyn C. Stevenson/Healthcare News of Western Massachusetts

Reduced Frontal-Lobe Activity And Impulsivity May Be Linked To Alcoholism Risk

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 06 Jan 2007 - 14:00 PST


Increased impulsivity, or a lack of impulse control, is a key characteristic of many psychiatric disorders, including alcohol dependence. Recent studies suggest that increased impulsivity is involved in a predisposition to developing these disorders. A new study of brain processes provides support for this theory...

Quotes from article:

Compulsive Hoarding-Part 1
by Linda Hansen

Our youngest has a real problem with hoarding. He saves everything. It is very difficult for him to discard school papers, outgrown clothing and shoes, old or broken toys, anything that Daniel considers his. Food also falls in this category and was the first place I became aware of the problem.

In his fragile mind he worries that he will make the wrong decision so he hesitates to make one at all. Daniel's exaggerated attachment to his possessions is his way of dealing with his displacement and bewilderment in being left behind by the one person he trusted more than anyone, his mom. Having tangible items in his possession gives
him an exaggerated feeling of ownership and to his way of thinking, some control over what happens in his life.

To read more of it, you will find it here:

Great Discussion & Learning Tool about Hoarding at NeuroTalk Communities.

Definition of Pathological hoarding

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Source: Pathological hoarding: Excessive hoarding of material goods, a condition that affects up to 40% of people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Excessive hoarders, who fill their houses with accumulations of junk, usually newspapers, bags of old clothing and lists, tend to experience more anxiety, depression and social disability than OCD patients with other symptoms. Hoarders are also less likely to seek help.

Pathological hoarders have decreased activity in the anterior cingulate, a brain structure involved in decision making and problem solving, compared with people with other OCD symptoms. The hoarders also show less activation than the healthy subjects in the posterior cingulate, an area involved in spatial orientation, memory and emotion. Hoarding may therefore have a distinctive basis in brain activity.