Many of us are collectors, and probably even more of us are surrounded by some degree of clutter. These are quite normal situations.
But in some cases, the level of collecting can become a compulsive behavior, to the point where access to parts of the home are restricted by the sheer amount of stuff.
At this level, hoarding can be both a health and a fire risk.
In most cases, hoarding behavior is an effort to impose some degree of control on an environment that the hoarder feels is otherwise out of control.
The process that culminates in obsessive hoarding often begins in teenage years, but can take decades to develop into a serious condition.
Hypnotherapy is highly effective in treating hoarding as the condition is almost always driven by the sufferer’s subconscious attempts to impose control.
Using hypnosis a therapist can work at the level of the subconscious to identify the causes and to help the subconscious find more helpful and less intrusive coping strategies.
Judith L. Cameron Ph.D has written an interesting article entitled ‘The Role of Hypnotherapy in Working with Cluttering and Hoarding’, in which she describes five levels of hoarding behavior as defined by the US group, The National Study Group on Chronic Disorganisation.
You can read her article here.