Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. You've probably seen it on TV shows about hoarding. People living in

homes so full of clutter or mess that walkways are blocked, doors cannot be opened, and full

rooms are unusable. In some cases, their homes may even be on the brink of becoming condemned.

Despite these shows' popularity, hoarding disorder itself is complex and hard to treat.

It was only given its own official diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual, commonly known as the DSM, in 2013.

There's still a lot about hoarding disorder that is not well understood, but we do know

that it causes a lot of pain and suffering for the people who have hoarding disorder and is not well understood, but we do know that it causes a lot of pain and

suffering for the people who have hoarding disorder and their loved ones. Here to help explain more

about hoarding, what treatment options are available, and how people can take the first steps

to clearing the clutter, is Dr. Julie Pike, a clinical psychologist in private practice who treats

people with hoarding disorder.

She has appeared on the Discovery TLC show, Hoarding Buried Alive.

Welcome, Dr. Pike.

Thanks for having me, Caitlin. I appreciate it.

I'm really happy to have you here on this show today.

I think it's helpful to first start off by defining what hoarding is and what it is not.

Can you give us a brief explanation of what constitutes hoarding disorder? Horting disorder is a phenomenon where people collect so much stuff,

so to speak, that they can't use their home or their space for its intended purpose.

So, for example, we've all seen, you know, pictures and videos of homes that are so cluttered

that can move to cars or garages or storage spaces.

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