How to Help Someone with Hoarding Disorder

If you do a Google Image search for “hoarder,” you get pages of horrifying images, some featuring people in full-body HAZMAT suits and face masks up to their hips in stuff.

If you watch Hoarders, the TV show, you see dramatic shots of toxic hazards, distraught people with mascara running down their faces, and supposed "treatment teams" yelling profanities and threats at people. They seem like scenes from a horror movie!

But what's behind these sensationalized scenes? What is hoarding disorder and how does someone develop it? Do the tactics we see on reality TV really represent the best way to help a person with hoarding disorder?

I spoke with Elaine Birchall, MSW, an expert on hoarding disorder and founding force behind the Canadian National Hoarding Coalition. She's a co-author, along with Suzanne Cronkwright, of Conquer the Clutter: Strategies to Identify, Manage, and Overcome Hoarding. In this interview, she:

• Takes an evidence-based and compassionate look at why people hoard
• Explains the risk pathways that lead someone to cross the threshold between being cluttered to having hoarding disorder
• gives in-depth advice on how to help a loved one to begin their journey of recovery

Here's a paraphrased summary of our discussion. But, as with all my interviews, I encourage you to click the audio player above and have a listen to get all the nuances.

What is hoarding disorder and how can you recognize it?

Savvy Psychologist: There seems to be a lot of stigma attached to hoarding. Is that your impression?

Elaine Birchall:

Absolutely. It’s a very shaming, judgment-loaded disorder to have. It’s a lonely and fearful experience. The TV shows have been a mixed blessing—they’ve given people the language to call it the right thing, “hoarding disorder,” but they also specialize in good TV. You would never treat people that way.

If you shame people, they can’t make their best decisions, and they’re going to repeat the behavior.

The approaches depicted in these TV shows are not only not compassionate, but they’re also not very effective. If you shame people, they can’t make their best decisions, and they’re going to repeat the behavior.

SP: Let’s back up a little bit. What is hoarding disorder?

EB:

It’s a persistent mental health disorder. It’s defined in the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, 5th Edition (DSM-5). If there is enough functional impairment to someone’s life, it qualifies as a disability and people have the right to reasonable accommodations...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips