What Every Professional Organizer Needs to Know About Hoarding

by Judith Kolberg

Compulsive hoarding is a complex disorder. This book provides basics about the disorder for professional organizers, social workers, community agencies, mental health practitioners, law enforcement and anyone who encounters people who hoard. You'll learn the psychological underpinnings and the organizational challenges of people who acquire and save so excessively that they undermine the health, safety and comfort of their own home. This is a hopeful book that examines creative collaborative approaches including combinations of organizing and therapy, self-help efforts, support groups and other means for making a difference in the life of a person who hoards. The Foreword is written by Dr. David Tolin, a leading authority on the topic. The author is Judith Kolberg, the founder of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. If you work with, love or are a person who hoards, this book is for you.

204 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

Reviews

[A. Housewife]

quick read. I always appreciate reading about hoarding and having it laid out in black and white terms just what exactly I was dealing with. I didn't think it gave me much (it's more for professional organizers who are dealing with level 4 & 5 and my family was level 3 which in some ways is the worst because 1&2 can make progress and 4&5 are often externally forced to make progress by being evicted) but I see I folded down at least 7 parts.

Compulsive hoarding cannot be addressed by improvement in level of organization skills.

Decisions to discard personal possessions activate regions in the brain associated with punishment or unpleasant events in hoarders.

What is missing for people who hoard is the balance between the gains of making organizing decisions and living with them vs the small consequence of making a wrong organizing decision.

Common comorbid conditions with hoarding: OCD, depression, social anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, and social phobia.

Hoarding takes its toll on everyone in the family. It's not uncommon for family members to seek therapy before the individual who hoards does.

- Inability to sort and categorize
- difficulty weighing alternatives and making decisions, which in turn increases stress
- perfectionism tendencies that cause action paralysis
- sever trouble prioritizing that leads to neglecting important tasks

[E.]

I think that this does exactly what it aims to do for the people it's meant for, but, unfortunately for me, it didn't really give me what I was looking for. I was hoping this would include more of the author's experiences with hoarders and the psychology behind hoarding that helped her make a difference in these people's lives. While that is included to some extent, this is much more of a how-to manual for people who do this professionally on building the most efficient team to handle different levels of hoarding.

[Liz]

A must read for professional organizers and could even be helpful to the family helping someone with hoarding behaviors. I work regularly with those individuals as a professional organizer and while I already knew much of the content, I still gained some new tidbits and a different perspective on certain aspects of the disorder and those who struggle with it.

[Jennifer]

I have enjoyed other books by Judith Kolberg but really loved this book! Simple to read and understand. Great information!

[Melissa]

Great resource for forms I may need as an organizer. Good list of things you need to be in order to work with hoarders.

[Cindy]

Exactly what the title describes - well written, concise and very, very helpful.