Know of a book which discusses WHY people accumulate clutter and how to change their THINKING?

The reason people d o that is sloth and laziness. Life is not what Oprah or any other quack says. Get off the damn couch and start cleaning and throwing away the crap. Why live like a human pig?

http://www.scotthyoung.com/howtochangeahabit/

The book is $14.99 and addresses how to change a habit regardless of what it is. It doesn’t tell you how to get organized but will help you change the way you think. This book is about teaching the right strategies so you don’t need to constantly rely on willpower.

In this book you’ll learn:

What trial periods are, and why they are your most important tool in creating habits.
How you can make use of the research from a Russian scientist to create triggers so habits run automatically.
What Replacement Theory is and how it can help you overcome stubborn habits like new diets, smoking or procrastination.
How to use operant conditioning to ensure habits become deeply ingrained into your being so it becomes difficult to revert to your old behaviors.
What changing habits actually feels like and the important five stages, and potential hazards, you’ll go through in trying to make a change.
Why you shouldn’t be so quick to judge habits as positive or negative
How to run a personal experiment so you can test new forms of behavior like you would take a new car for a test drive.
How to adjust the parameters of your habit so you have more willpower than you could otherwise.
How to change habits of thinking to introduce more optimism, gratitude and happiness into your life.

Hoarding (accumulating clutter) is a form of OCD.

OCD-related treatments, therefore, are the most effective for these types of patients.

~Dr. B.~

If you are talking about hoarders (phobia) then they think if they toss something, they will need it. It is a form of OCD, they can’t part with their “stuff”. Some people keep so much junk it over takes their homes, but they would rather die than part with it. I can’t cast stones because I have irrational fears, I don’t know why it comes about, but is nearly impossible to cure. Dr’s try to break you of the habit, or just to keep some things, not everything.

Hording and pack ratting are mental and emotional manifestations of something else. (It’s not about being dirty-that’s another issue). It’s closely related to obsessive-compulsion and anxiety and can overwhelm, so it’s a cycle. I would encourage anyone with this issue to speak to a counselor to get to the root of the problem.

I’ve read a LOT of books on the topic of clutter & disorganisation, and I still haven’t found the “perfect” book. Julie Morgenstern’s “Organizing from the Inside Out” is quite good, and goes into a lot more detail about the various causes of disorganisation and/or clutter than most books do. It also covers that standard “how to get organised” advice too, but it relates it back to the psychological factors.

The trouble is, there isn’t just one “cause” of clutter. Some people have disorders like OCD or ADHD that lead to clutter, others have deep rooted emotional problems that make it difficult to part with stuff, whilst some people just never learnt how to be tidy & organised. And that’s only a few of the possible reasons! Some books seem to assume that every clutterer has the same set of problems, which just isn’t true. I get frustrated at the assumption that it’s all about emotional insecurity, because I know that’s not really my problem. Mine is more about distractibility, too many interests, “out of sight out of mind” tendencies (I leave stuff out where I can see it otherwise I tend to forget about it), a strong dislike of wasting things, & an ability to see a use for everything!

If you are asking this question because there is someone in your life who has problems with clutter, bear in mind that putting pressure on them to change could be counterproductive. If the clutter is a symptom of a deep rooted emotional issue, you could just make the problem worse. And even those of us whose clutter is a sign of something else are still likely to get defensive or anxious if someone starts to criticise or interfere! The best thing you can do is be supportive and encouraging; offer help but only in a completely unpressured way. They have to want to change, you can’t force them.