Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Frost, Randy O.; Steketee, Gail

ISBN 10: 015101423X / ISBN 13: 9780151014231

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

About this Item

Like new condition with only one mark on first page. Dust jacket and whole book in unused condition.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1759780918806

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 015101423X
• ISBN 13: 9780151014231
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dimensions: 1.905W x 15.875H x 22.86D centimeters 1.905 centimeters width by 15.875 centimeters height by 22.86 centimeters depth
• Weight: 499 grams

About this title

Synopsis

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper thatâ s 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? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep?

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 hoarderâ 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 â churnâ but never discard, even collections of animals and garbageâ Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether weâ re savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live.

For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

About the Authors

DR. GAIL STEKETEE is a professor and acting dean at Boston University in the school of social work.

DR. RANDY FROST is a professor of psychology at Smith College and an internationally known expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder and compulsive hoarding, as well as the pathology of perfectionism.