Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
THINK about the one thing you own that you would grab first in a fire. Now imagine feeling that strongly about every single possession. What drives those of us who just can't throw things away? Like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items almost lost him his home?
Stuff is the first comprehensive book about compulsive hoarding, a disorder that affects far more people than is commonly known. Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first scientists to study hoarding when they began their work; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of people and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore this behavior through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks. With vivid portraits that show us the particular traits of the hoarder-piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, homes that have to be navigated by narrow "goat trails," stacks of paper that are "churned" but never dis-carded, even collections of animals and gar-bage-Frost and Steketee expose the causes and previously ineffective treatments of the disorder. They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us: whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us are free of the impulses that drive hoarders to extremes.
For the more than six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and the rest of us with complicated relationships with our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.
Psychology
Hard cover
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