Understanding the hoarding problem is taking the first steps toward change.
Hoarding behavior can disrupt your entire life. Here’s what you can do.
Key points
- Our behavior comes from our thinking about situations, not from the situations themselves.
- You can change your behavior by changing your thinking.
- It takes practice to change your thinking.
How To Overcome A Hoarding Problem?
Hoarding generally involves saving household items and clothing that are no longer useful, contributing to clutter and dysfunction.
To address hoarding, begin with the main principle: Your emotions and behaviors come from your thinking about situations, not from the situations themselves. This is good news! When your emotions or behaviors are undesirable, you’re not defeated. You can identify the beliefs causing these emotions and behaviors and then change your thinking. So the first step in diagnosing a hoarding problem involves identifying the irrational thinking that’s behind it.
Read More Here: How Clutter Affects Mental Health: The Psychology Behind It
These are some thoughts you might experience:
It would be awful if I discarded something I may need in the future.
I can’t stand discarding anything.
I must save something that’s been so useful in the past.
I must not deprive myself of something I may have use for.
I must avoid the frustration of being without.
I must always have what I want at my fingertips.
I must make the right decision about whether or not to discard something.
It shouldn’t be so difficult to decide what to keep and what to throw out.
To uproot this irrational thinking, question, challenge, and contradict it.
Here’s an example of this process:
A. (Activating Event) Suppose I discard something and then I want it in the future?
B. (Irrational Belief) I must not deprive myself of something I may have use for in the future.
C. (Undesirable Behavioral Consequence) Hoarding.
D. (Disputing or Questioning the Irrational Belief) What is the evidence that proves I must not discard something I may have use for in the future?
E. (Effective New Thinking) Although I strongly desire not to discard something I may have use for in the future, there is no reason I absolutely must not. If in the unlikely case I happen to do so, this would hardly prove awful, horrible, terrible, or the end of my world. I would not like to have thrown something out that I could use later, but I can rationally accept what I don’t like. It’s not the possibility of throwing an item out that causes my hoarding, but rather it’s my irrational must thinking about it that’s my problem, and with repeated practice at writing out this type of cognitive exercise, I can change my thinking.
F. (New Behavior Resulting From E) Throwing out or giving away household items and clothing when they are no longer useful.
Read More Here: 5 Tips That Can Help You In Freeing Up Your Mental Space
Note: Identical twin studies indicate 50% of hoarding behavior is genetic. While your genetic predispositions and biological proclivities influence your behavior, your thinking controls it.
To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
References
Edelstein, M.R. & Steele, D.R. (2019). Three Minute Therapy. San Francisco, CA: Gallatin House.
Written by Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Originally appeared on: Psychology Today
Leave a Comment