My 27 year old daughter needs help with hoarding

[Salaam]

Please can someone help ...my daughter's hoarding is overwhelming her ....her relationship and her family  life.

How do I get help I've tryed helping practically but it useless.

[Gemma@OCDUK]

Hi Salaam,

I'm sorry to hear that your daughter is struggling with hoarding problems at the moment, I understand how much it can impact on everyone. Although, many people with hoarding difficulties do need practical help, often the underlying reasons that they feel the need to hoard need dealt with before they feel able to discard items. I would suggest that if your daughter feels able, she should speak to her GP about a possible referral for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which will help her to address the underlying meanings she places on the hoarded items and help her challenge the feelings she get's when acquiring and discarding things. 

There is a helpful book called Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding by David F. Tolin and Gail Steketee that may be a helpful starting point, if she doesn't yet feel ready.

Gemma

[Angst]

Hoarders U.K. website provides info including something called the clutter index which consists of pictures of the rooms of a house and nine pictures of each of these rooms showing degrees of clutter. (There are also support groups throughout the U.K.) If your daughter downloads these pictures she will be able to assess the degree of her hoarding and show it to a GP. The book recommended by Gemma is a US publication but the writers are the leading experts in their field and the book is the standard book used in therapy. The problems of hoarding pertain to problems of a acquiring -storage- disposing items. There are problems in each of these things including storage with cognitive problems in ordering and classifying items. Does you daughter recognise that she has a problem?

[Angst]

Just to add something, as Professor Paul Salkovskis has written, hoarding carries a lot of stigma not helped by a series of tv programmes and press coverage which makes it difficult for people to seek treatment. He runs a National centre centre for hoarding based at Oxford. It is worth reading his work on hoarding and if you daughter does not recognise the problem I would approach the perceived problem gently. It is associated with OCD, depression, autism and bereavement.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Angst