"Emotional attachment to an object associated with a significant person, place, event or time.
- Items are seen as a part of themselves, so losing an item would be the same as losing a piece of ones self or ones history; items are part of person identity. Feelings of grief and loss can accompany, similar to losing a person.
- There is also a tendency to assign human like qualities to possessions. For example, one study reported a case where a woman bought a dozen puppets from a TV shopping station because no one bid on them and she felt afraid the puppets feelings were being hurt.
- Comfort and security provided by items
- Hoarders are in a state of perpetual "just in case I need this," so they may carry lots of items with them.
Hoarders may feel a sense of security and comfort when surrounded by their possessions. For example, researchers reported a case where a woman who had had a very stressful day remarked that she wanted to go home and gather her treasures around her.
Items are saved for their usefulness.
- Hoarders feel guilt for not using up or wasting an item when it could be used later. This is the strongest predictor of hoarding severity. Hoarding sometimes insist they can get rid of items if they want but progress in getting rid of items is slow and usually new items are still being acquired.
- Fear of losing important information: this is closely associated with lack or memory, which can really be a lack of confidence in memory. Hoarders will say that items help them remember things, i.e. "saving items means I do not need a good memory"
- People hoard because of the exaggerated desire to have control over their possessions. Very resistant to having people touch or share their items. Unauthorized touches can result in strong reactions (because items are seen as an extension of self, unauthorized touching may be seen as a violation)"
Compulsive Hoarding & Collecting (2011) Available at: http://www.ocdtypes.com/hoarding-ocd.php (Accessed: 26 October 2015).
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