A concise history of compulsive hoarding confirms how natural it is to accumulate reserves for a rainy day. Many creatures including squirrels and moles do so too, so why not humans?
There is ample evidence of the rich and famous acquiring conspicuous wealth down the centuries. However, when the habit spins out of control, it becomes compulsive hoarding.
Archaeologists have found evidence of humans hiding reserves of food thousands of years ago. Moving forward, there are records of William Shakespeare storing huge amounts of grain during a famine.
An Uptick of Compulsive Hoarding
Most folk were too poor to afford the luxury of hoarding, before the industrial revolution. They lived from hand to mouth until they had access to jobs and bank accounts.
The Great Depression of 1929 to 1939, was a watershed moment in our concise history of compulsive hoarding. That was when folk lost faith in banks and hoarded their cash.
The Collyer brothers were a case in point. They lived in their mother’s New York home, and stayed on after she died in 1929. They invested all they had in possessions, that filled their home to overflowing.
The Next Phase as Wealth Returns
Our concise history of compulsive hoarding continues, as money flows back into society. President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 in 1933, forbidding hoarding of gold coins and bullion, so the wealth remained in circulation.
Money gradually trickled back through society until, at last, the crisis was over. Other forms of compulsive hoarding must have continued, although there is hardly a mention of this in history books.
Another world war came and went, with money flowing in and out of the global economy. Then, in the 1960’s, psychology recognized compulsive hoarding as a medical condition, and labeled it Diogenes Syndrome.
Diogenes’ Place in History
Diogenes was born in Greece in the 4th Century BC. He went down in history for his self-neglect, domestic squalor, social withdrawal, utter lack of shame, and refusal to accept authority.
This analogy reminds us of a moment in our concise history of compulsive hoarding, when folk believed that such behaviour was deliberate. It was as if Diogenes was guilty.
By the 1980’s, psychology had relented to the extent that it regarded hoarding as involuntary. The official diagnosis became obsessive-compulsive disorder, and later obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
New Direction For Compulsive Hoarding
Randy Frost and Tamara Hartl refined this model in 1996. Their alternative approach viewed compulsive hoarding as a multifaceted problem stemming from four deficiencies. These issues were:
- Information processing defects.
- Problems forming emotional attachments.
- Behavioural avoidance.
- Erroneous beliefs about the nature of possessions.
This analysis provided a solid foundation, for much of the research that followed on these groundbreaking ideas.
A Staircase Blocked With Clutter (Image Avery Associates)
Hoarding Gains Diagnostic Independence
Despite this groundbreaking work by Frost, Hartl, and others, hoarding continued to be regarded as a subset of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
The American Psychiatric Association updated its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2013, and classified compulsive hoarding as a separate condition.
This was a significant moment in the concise history of compulsive hoarding. Despite this, the World Health Organization took five years to follow suit.
The Organization’s 11th Revision of its International Classification of Diseases, classified compulsive hoarding as a distinct condition under Code 6B24. It finally accepted that many hoarders do not, in fact, have obsessions and compulsions.
Hoarding in the 21st Century
Compulsive hoarding remained largely under wraps, until the dawn of the new millennium. Psychologists and medical professionals knew about it of course, as did hoarders and their families and friends.
Hoarding remained a largely private affair, until reality television and some popular news channels discovered there was money to be made popularizing it.
This was a sad day in our concise history of compulsive hoarding. Hoarders retreated into their shells, lest they be pilloried and mocked. Fortunately, we are through that era now.
Compulsive hoarding is now recognized for what it is: An involuntary medical condition not of the hoarder’s own making. However, this does not detract from the fact that some hoarders homes are far from safe…
Safety Aspects of Hoarding
If you know of a compulsive hoarder, then rest assured you are not alone. There’s ample evidence that compulsive hoarding may affect as many as 6% of the UK population.
The current medical focus is on helping hoarders live safely with their condition, as opposed to finding ‘miracle cures’. Living successfully with hoarding includes removing these unsafe conditions, such as clutter blocking stair cases and outside doors.
Avery Associates can assist with clearing away this clutter, and giving a hoarder’s home a jolly good clean. This clears the way for a hoarder to put their life together safely, and responsibly insofar as possible. Please call Avery Associates on 0800 567 7769 for more information. Thank you for reading this.
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