People with hoarding disorder (HD) experience strong emotional attachment to their possessions, and extreme difficulty and distress when throwing things away. This can lead to excessive collecting of possessions, with risks to movement in one’s home, sanitation, and safety. One possible explanation for this strong emotional attachment to possessions is loneliness, as people with HD bond with their possessions to replace the bonds with other people that are missing from their lives. The social impacts of HD may reinforce and deepen these feelings of loneliness by making it difficult to form or sustain healthy relationships.

Two studies by Dr. Yap and his team provided further insight into loneliness and HD. The first study showed that loneliness was correlated to hoarding symptom severity, in both a clinical sample (n=39) and a community sample (n=1,080). The second study tested an online loneliness intervention (the Building Stronger Connections program, or BSC) with 142 participants with HD symptoms, and a control health education program on 156 participants with HD symptoms. The BSC taught participants to challenge myths about social connection and encouraged them to reduce social isolation. The study showed that the BSC reduced loneliness, feelings of social disconnection, and object attachment in people with HD symptoms.

Resulting Publications: