Compulsive hoarding: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.

BACKGROUND

This project aimed to explore the experiences of people who compulsively hoard and how they make sense of their own hoarding behaviours.

METHOD

A total of 11 compulsive hoarders were recruited and interviewed using a simple semi-structured interview format, designed for the purposes of the study. The resulting transcribed interviews were analyzed using interpretive-phenomenological analysis.

RESULTS

Four super-ordinate discrete, but interacting, themes were found: (1) childhood factors; (2) the participants' relationship to their hoarded items; (3) cognitive and behavioural avoidance of discard; and (4) the impact of hoarding on self, others and the home environment. The themes as a whole described people entrapped in massively cluttered physical environments of their own making. Efforts at discard appeared consistently sabotaged by cognitive/behavioural avoidance, thereby creating maintaining factors of associated personal distress and environmental decline.

CONCLUSIONS

The results are discussed in the context of the extant evidence concerning hoarding, the distinct contribution made by the current results and the identified methodological shortcomings of the research approach.