Stuff

Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

By: Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee

Narrated by: Joe Caron

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper thats ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house?

Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.

With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder - piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders churn but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage - Frost and Steketee illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us.

Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, very few of us are in fact free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. For all of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

©2010 Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This succinct, illuminating book will prove helpful to hoarders, their families, and mental health professionals who work with them." ( Publishers Weekly)

Delivers as promised

I found the authors lucid and caring. The book taught me a few things and gave some highly illuminating examples. Recommend.

A Little Clinical, But Good

This book tells a number of stories about compulsive hoarders, separated by a lot of clinical discussions of the behaviour. I found it to be kind, fair, and deliberate in its avoidance of over-sensationalized reality-tv-style depictions of these people, who are instead portrayed as creative, intelligent, sensitive, and often badly misunderstood (and mistreated) by the rest of society. It was a professional and refreshing take on the phenomenon of hoarding.

Although I enjoyed the book, it was too detached and clinical for a popular psychology book in my opinion. Hearing about the people was interesting, and some of the discussion of causes of hoarding, treatments, etc. was worth reading, but it was not personal enough for me to feel invested in the hoarders’ lives (likely due to the professional detachment of the authors) and too much of it was about things like how to categorize hoarding in the DSM and other minutiae that not many average readers would care about.

The narration was very good. It was easy to listen to and added to the experience of reading the book.

Overall, I gave the book four stars. It was definitely insightful, respectful, and interesting; I just found it was not always focused on the aspects of the topic most likely to engage an average person reading the book.

It's about hoarding, only about hoarding.

What did you like best about Stuff? What did you like least?

I must have misread the description of the book as I didn't expect this to be only about the issue of hoarding. I was expecting a behavioral and sociological book about our culture's obsessions with objects. This is only about those who have a clinically diagnosed case, and only tangentially mentions the DSM as it relates to those who have tendencies toward the collection of objects with uncontrolled personal control.

I rated the book a 3 because, as far as a story about hoarders goes, it was acceptable. The performance was impressive.

very interesting

I wanted to learn more about the topic after listening. Great book very very interesting.

Excellent reading for anyone overwhelmed by “stuff” (their own or someone else’s...)

As a “chronically disorganized” person with some self-described hoarding tendencies, I found this an excellent overview and explanation of the different reasons hoarding happens. Many of the concepts are illustrated by different case studies Dr. Frost encountered and worked with while conducting research on hoarding. The real-life stories and quotes from hoarders describing their thinking and feeling about objects provided a compelling and fascinating insight into how things spiral out of control into levels near or at what shows up on reality shows. Sometimes I winced in recognition at what was described, and reflected on how I might be only a traumatic life event or two away from descending into overwhelming, life-disrupting levels of acquisition and clutter.

I found this an excellent and instructive read, most useful to those who seek better understanding and self-awareness about their own habits or the habits of someone they love.

Insightful

Helped me understand why I have a problem getting rid of things, and thus have too much stuff in my house. The resources listed will hopefully help me enlist the help I need.

Why do we buy things?

Any additional comments?

There is a lot of STUFF in this world. And there are some people... Who have WAY too much STUFF. That's what this book is all about. I found it incredibly interesting what the meaning of our STUFF is. Why do people collect things? Why do people buy things, keep things, etc...

The answer to this question came down to connection with other people. Individuals, especially ones that hoard, use their belongs as possible avenues to connect with other people. This insight into the MEANING of our possessions was incredibly insightful to me.

I really enjoyed reading the stories the authors used as exemplars to illustrate their points. The theoretical sections of this book wasn't too interesting... Also, because a lot of the issues facing hoarders doesnt at all apply to my life (I am currently traveling throughout Asia and living out of my suit case) it was harder for me to connect with this book on a deeper level.

Recommended with caveats

I can recommend this book to anyone who is interested in psychology-themed discussions. I found the academic style and presentation reassuring that the information was as reliable and vetted as well as possible at the time of writing. In contrast to some other reviewers, I did not personally find the academic nature of the discussion to be boring or dry. Some of the descriptions of hoarders is gave me an almost voyeuristic thrill and made my messy desk seem completely normal in contrast. I am not sure this was the intent of the author, but I would suspect that other non-hoarders might well have this response. The final segment of the book contained a discussion of modern American culture, and I found this part of the book to be preachy, irrelevant to the overall content, and speculative in a non-academic way. Other than that one weakness, I can recommend this book as an interesting read. The narration is fine but not spectacular. If you are not interested in the content, the narration will not carry this book for you.

A compelling, worthwhile read

Frost offers a comprehensive, insightful view into the world of hoarders...the varieties of hoarding, the theories on why they hoard (nature vs. nurture), the torment they often face, and how we might best help them face and manage this extremely difficult mental illness. As a professional in architecture who occasionally works with hoarders, I found this book to be valuable in helping me understand what my clients face.. Frost's narration of his own work is engaging and enjoyable to listen to....more narrative than academic.

Perfect Cocktail

This was a GREAT book for me because it combined my scholarly interest in truth with my lowbrow enjoyment of the TV show Hoarders. I . . . ahem . . . might hoard a little myself, or at least not be able to throw out railroad ties and broken bottles I dig up in the woods, but I still love to hear about other people who do it WORSE. I wonder if watching / reading about hoarding is a form of hoarding itself . . . .