Treatment of hoarding

In the past 5 years, hoarding has emerged as a serious, potentially debilitating and remarkably frequent form of psychopathology. Attempts to treat it have met with little success. Although the majority of studies using serotonin-reuptake inhibitors have shown a poor response among people with hoarding disorder, serious methodological problems limit the conclusions that can be drawn from these studies. The true efficacy of serotonin-reuptake inhibitors for hoarding is largely unknown. Cognitive-behavioral treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder have also fared badly in the treatment of hoarding. However, therapy based on a cognitive-behavioral model of hoarding has shown considerable promise.