them to survive.
By the middle of the twentieth century, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm had developed a theory of character in which he suggested that acquiring things is one way that people relate to the world around them. He believed that acquisition forms a "core" aspect of character. Excessive acquisition, or what Fromm called a "hoarding orientation," is one of four types of "nonproductive" character. People with a hoarding orientation, he thought, gain their sense of security from collecting and saving things. Fromm described people with this orientation as withdrawn, compulsive, suspicious, remote from others, orderly, and overly concerned with cleanliness and punctuality. In his later writings, Fromm posited two contrasting aspects of existence: having and being. Having, or the state of avarice, he claimed, is the most destructive feature of humanity.
Classical psychoanalysts such as Karl Abraham viewed possessions as socially acceptable alternatives to saving excrementâparts of the self these analysts believed every child has the impulse to retain. According to Abraham, the child replaces the desire to retain feces with a more acceptable impulseâto acquire possessions. The more recent object relations school of psychoanalytic thought describes the situation slightly differently. Donald Winnicott introduced the phrase "transitional object" to refer to physical objects to which children form intense attachments as they develop autonomy from their parents. These objects (e.g., blankets, soft toys) are replacements for the mother and form a transition from mother to independence. Early on, the mother is able to soothe the child. At some point, the transitional object takes over that role until the child is old enough to soothe himself or herself. (My own daughter became attached to a blanket she named Mana. Though now in her twenties, she still takes Mana with her whenever she travels.)
Sigmund Freud said little about hoarding, but he did describe a trio of traits he believed result from an anal fixation: orderliness, parsimony, and obstinacy. The parsimony component of the anal triad includes the hoarding of money: miserliness, or stinginess. Langley Collyer seemed to fit at least two of these traits, parsimony and obstinacy, although there is little evidence of his orderliness. Freud saw the hoarding of money as symbolic of fecal retention. Remnants of the "anal triad" can be seen in the current diagnostic criteria for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). This disorder, which is distinct from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), also closely fits Fromm's description of people with a "hoarding orientation." For example, one of the eight criteria for OCPD is a preoccupation with details, rules, order, and organization; another is being stingy with money; and a third is being rigid and stubborn. Included among the eight is "the inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value." Objects in a hoard may appear to be without value to an observer, but someone with a hoarding problem would hardly describe them as worthless.
Only in the past three decades have scientists begun testing these theories with empirical research. Lita Furby, a pioneer researcher in the field of ownership and possessions, studied explanations for the things people own. She found three major themes among people of all ages. The first and most frequent was that possessions allow the owner to do or accomplish something. In other words, possessions provide a sense of personal power or efficacy. Possessions have instrumental value; they are tools to perform tasks. We need things to do things, to exert some control over our environment. This mirrors findings from our earliest study of hoarding, in which both our hoarding and non-hoarding participants said that they owned things because they had uses for them. Virtually all of our hoarding clients make this claim for things they save, but so do
By the middle of the twentieth century, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm had developed a theory of character in which he suggested that acquiring things is one way that people relate to the world around them. He believed that acquisition forms a "core" aspect of character. Excessive acquisition, or what Fromm called a "hoarding orientation," is one of four types of "nonproductive" character. People with a hoarding orientation, he thought, gain their sense of security from collecting and saving things. Fromm described people with this orientation as withdrawn, compulsive, suspicious, remote from others, orderly, and overly concerned with cleanliness and punctuality. In his later writings, Fromm posited two contrasting aspects of existence: having and being. Having, or the state of avarice, he claimed, is the most destructive feature of humanity.
Classical psychoanalysts such as Karl Abraham viewed possessions as socially acceptable alternatives to saving excrementâparts of the self these analysts believed every child has the impulse to retain. According to Abraham, the child replaces the desire to retain feces with a more acceptable impulseâto acquire possessions. The more recent object relations school of psychoanalytic thought describes the situation slightly differently. Donald Winnicott introduced the phrase "transitional object" to refer to physical objects to which children form intense attachments as they develop autonomy from their parents. These objects (e.g., blankets, soft toys) are replacements for the mother and form a transition from mother to independence. Early on, the mother is able to soothe the child. At some point, the transitional object takes over that role until the child is old enough to soothe himself or herself. (My own daughter became attached to a blanket she named Mana. Though now in her twenties, she still takes Mana with her whenever she travels.)
Sigmund Freud said little about hoarding, but he did describe a trio of traits he believed result from an anal fixation: orderliness, parsimony, and obstinacy. The parsimony component of the anal triad includes the hoarding of money: miserliness, or stinginess. Langley Collyer seemed to fit at least two of these traits, parsimony and obstinacy, although there is little evidence of his orderliness. Freud saw the hoarding of money as symbolic of fecal retention. Remnants of the "anal triad" can be seen in the current diagnostic criteria for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). This disorder, which is distinct from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), also closely fits Fromm's description of people with a "hoarding orientation." For example, one of the eight criteria for OCPD is a preoccupation with details, rules, order, and organization; another is being stingy with money; and a third is being rigid and stubborn. Included among the eight is "the inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value." Objects in a hoard may appear to be without value to an observer, but someone with a hoarding problem would hardly describe them as worthless.
Only in the past three decades have scientists begun testing these theories with empirical research. Lita Furby, a pioneer researcher in the field of ownership and possessions, studied explanations for the things people own. She found three major themes among people of all ages. The first and most frequent was that possessions allow the owner to do or accomplish something. In other words, possessions provide a sense of personal power or efficacy. Possessions have instrumental value; they are tools to perform tasks. We need things to do things, to exert some control over our environment. This mirrors findings from our earliest study of hoarding, in which both our hoarding and non-hoarding participants said that they owned things because they had uses for them. Virtually all of our hoarding clients make this claim for things they save, but so do
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