An experimental study of mental contamination : the role of disgust, shame and guilt

• Main Author: Piper, Rebecca May
• Published: University of Surrey 2013
• Subjects: 616.8581
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.604343

Compulsive hoarding is a chronic and debilitating condition with previously reported poor outcomes from treatment. Frost and Hartl (1996) propose a CBT model which forms the basis of a targeted treatment for compulsive hoarding. This review appraises ten treatment studies offering CBT for compulsive hoarding based on Frost and Hartl's model. Outcome measures and treatment protocols have been refined in the more recent studies yielding more promising results. However methodological flaws prevail and limitations are discussed with reference to future research. Author's position I viewed this assignment as an opportunity to learn about a topic on which I knew little. I was keen to choose a topic which would both be interesting to me and be useful in my clinical practice and the practice of the CMI-IT in which I am working. Through discussions with my supervisor it was suggested that compulsive hoarding would be a useful topic to• review as this behaviour is something that the team have previously found to be both relatively common and also difficult to treat. I knew little of this problem and thought it was a specific enough topic to be suitable for this assignment. Aims This review will aim to provide a brief overview of compulsive hoarding with initial reference to definition, diagnosis and previously reported difficulties with treatment. The main part of the review will contain a critical analysis of currently published studies investigating the treatment of compulsive hoarding based on Frost and _Hartl's Cognitive Behavioural Model for Compulsive Hoarding (Frost and Hartl, 1996). Search Strategy Using PsychInfo, Web of Knowledge and Pubmed the search terms "hoarding" and "treatment" were entered yielding between 250-300 results varying across the databases. A visual overview of each result was examined for usefulness in the review. Some further papers were found through inspection of the reference lists of papers.