Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: News

Compulsive hoarding is a pathological disorder characterized by feelings of anxiety and insecurity, but is made physically manifest by the salvaging of too many items. In this case, the afflicted person is unable to decipher between what is necessary and what is useless. The end result is clutter, both in one's mind and in her or his room.

Randy O. Frost, an internationally recognized expert on compulsive hoarding will be speaking on Tuesday, March 11, in Weinstein Auditorium. Frost will present the 50th Annual Katharine Asher Engel Lecture entitled "Buried in Treasures," which is also the name of his most recent self-help book. The lecture will be free and open to the public.

On the surface, hoarding may appear to be trivial. The symptoms may not be interpreted as particularly alarming: failure to discard of possessions that have limited value, a cluttered living space that hampers activities the space was designed for and stress caused by the hoarding. There are worse things to be than a "pack-rat," right? Though this condition is not directly life threatening, it is life-style threatening.

However, this disorder cannot simply be thrown away like a piece of a junk. A hoarder's beliefs may keep her or him transfixed on useless treasures. "Teaching people how to change their discarding behavior is more difficult, because people who hoard have very rigid and powerful beliefs about their possessions; letting go of cherished objects is not possible unless these beliefs change or become more flexible," Frost has written in "Learning to Let Go," an article featured in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Winter 2006-07.

Initiating change is a slow process that requires coaxing the habit down the stairs one step at a time. Frost explains that by getting people "to consider their beliefs to be hypotheses rather than facts, they usually are willing to test them- but not without some distress." Slowly but surely, a hoarder might realize that life still goes on even after that one beanie baby is in the garbage bin, so maybe throwing away the next 742 will not be that bad either.

Frost, the Harold Edward and Elsa Siipola Israel Professor of Psychology, received his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas in 1977 before joining the faculty at Smith. He has authored over 100 scientific articles and book chapters concerning hoarding, obsessive-compulsive disorder and perfectionism. His research on hoarding has been centered around the concept of phenomena - which is the study of how things are perceived - and possible treatments for the disorder.

So if you or someone you know is having trouble fitting a mansion's worth of junk into a dorm room, Frost's lecture "Buried Treasures" just might be your clean-up call.

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Posted on Friday, March 07, 2008 @ 23:48:22 ICT by Donna