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Help Research on Hoarding Behaviours

Updated: Mar 24, 2020

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Newcastle University researcher Lauren Smith and Dr Claire Lomax, clinical psychologist, are currently carrying out research on beliefs about hoarding in those aged between 18 and 25.

If you, or someone you know, is within this age bracket and has hoarding difficulties Lauren would be very grateful if they took part in their online study.


Hoarding disorder (HD) is a mental health condition which is defined as the excessive acquisition of items, holding and engaging with items, and the inability to discard vast quantities of possessions. We know that this causes a lot of distress for individuals who have difficulties with hoarding and that it can impact on many aspects of their life. The average age that people begin to hoard is around 16 years old and there are many different hypotheses about why individuals hoard. Previous research suggests that there are a lot of possible motives driving hoarding behaviour and that these can be different for different individuals. It is important to understand more about the variation in hoarding behaviour as recovery outcomes for hoarding disorder treatment (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) are relatively poor. It has been suggested that different treatments are needed to target the different psychological mechanisms involved in hoarding, and this research hopes to shed light on this and make recommendations in relation to the assessment, understanding and treatment of hoarding disorder.


If you believe you can help follow the link below for more details:

Thank you.

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