Friday, February 11, 2011

Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding PDF

Rating: Author: Gail Steketee ISBN : Product Detai New from Format: PDF
Direct download links available PRETITLE Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding POSTTITLE from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link Buried in Treasures outlines a scientifically-based and effective program for helping compulsive hoarders dig their way out of the clutter and chaos of their homes.
Discover the reasons for your problems with acquiring, saving, and hoarding, and learn new ways of thinking about your possessions so you can accurately identify those things you really need and those you can do without. Learn to recognize the "bad guys" that maintain your hoarding behavior and meet the "good guys" who will motivate you and put you on the path to change.
Features of this book include:
-Self-assessments to determine the severity of the problem
-Tips and tools for organizing your possessions and filing your paperwork
-Strategies for changing unhelpful beliefs about your possessions
-Behavioral experiments to reduce your fear of anxiety and fear of discarding. Direct download links available for PRETITLE Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding [Kindle Edition] POSTTITLE
  • File Size: 1565 KB
  • Print Length: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (February 8, 2007)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B000SEKKZI
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray:
    Not Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,047 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
    • #16 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior
    • #20 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Clinical Psychology
    • #73 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior
  • #16 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior
  • #20 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Clinical Psychology
  • #73 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior

Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding PDF

In the introduction of "Buried in Treasures", Tolin, Frost and Steketee offer two cautions to the reader. Caution 1 "this book will not solve your hoarding problems". They state "this book is a guide that will provide you with the necessary information to understand the problem of compulsive hoarding and will give you tools to help beat the problem". Caution 2 is that "overcoming compulsive hoarding will be hard work".

The authors emphasize that hoarding is "a problem of emotional, mental, behavioral, and social well-being" and that "some scientific evidence suggests that there may be a genetic component to hoarding". It is basically a description of the treatment program that they have developed over many years of treating patients at their hoarding clinic. While the book discusses the physical side regarding sorting and purging as well as the stopping of the acquiring, its' emphasis is on the mental/emotional side of hoarding.

As opposed to other similar books, this book is based on science and ongoing clinical research. The book is essentially a guide to change and the authors note that "people start to work on their hoarding problem when the reasons for change outweigh the reasons for not changing, and not a moment sooner". Their suggested treatment is based on CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) which is solution focused.

This is somewhat of a workbook. It includes many exercises to help the hoarder to consciously change their thinking. Some examples are a self-assessment test in the chapter "What is Compulsive Hoarding?", a hoarding severity scale that is very similar

to the NSGCD Hoarding Scale, Visualization Exercises, Category & Location lists and questionnaires such as "Comparing Your Perceptions with Those of Others".
"Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding" is for "collectors," of which I most certainly am one! If you are a "collector," you know you must solve--all on your own--this problem of accumulating too much stuff.

Oh yes, it would be wonderful to have someone come in and help you make all the stuff disappear, as the team on "Clean House" does. Sort it in bins, then discard, donate, sell--yep, the way to go, except, Mr. or Miss Collector, you cannot put it in any bins except to keep it. Right?

That's where this book comes in--it actually breaks down every argument your pesky little mind can throw in your way to de-clutter. I won't go into details, but my severe acquiring and cluttering developed as a result of divorce. I literally could not touch anything to put away or discard. It had to just sit there, taking up space, keeping people away. Someone volunteered to help me organize, but the thought put me in panic mode.

"Buried in Treasures" is helping. Writers David Tolin, Randy Frost, and Gail Steketee name the condition as compulsive hoarding and stating that overcoming the problem is hard work. They define three conditions for hoarding:
1. Accumulating, then having difficulty getting rid of things of limited or useless value,
2. Clutter that limits or prevents the use of living spaces in the manner for which they were intended,
3. Both the clutter itself and discarding the clutter cause distress.

In order for the hoarder to address the problem, he/she must understand the causes for hoarding, the results, and reasons to change. Hoarding did not happen overnight nor will the clutter disappear overnight.

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