In the April issue of Martha's Living, there was an article that caught my attention. It was entitled The Curse of Clutter (and of course this is not published on their website), it focused on the medical side of hoarding. Mary Duenwald, the author, who also writes for the New York Times about health issues, discusses hoarding as a new phenomena that we are facing which psychologist and brain scientists have been studying for the several years.

An interesting statement in the article was, and I quote,  "But what eludes them (psychologist and brain scientists) is an explanation of what causes the condition and how to treat it reliably."

It got me thinking.... looking at my family I think back to the (what I like to call excuses), but what they call "reasons" why they hoard. For my grandmother it was growing up in the depression, and for my parents is was growing up during the war. There was always a "reason" why they kept everything and the kitchen sink, for the ever popular "reason" (aka excuse) that someone might need it someday.

I sometimes wonder if more and more people are popping up with hoarding issues because of the time when they were born? I can imagine how growing up in a very "depressed" era could seriously effect how a person lives, not to mention habit changing.

Another thing that struck me as interesting from this article, was that not once was NSGCD mentioned. Why do you suppose that is? I would consider them to be the pioneers in hoarding studies and worth mentioning.

I have to say that after reading, re-reading and reading the article again, I thought that Mary did a fair job in outlining the medical aspects of hoarding. I personally feel that hoarding is personal and psychological that is best treated though therapy, not a pill bottle.