Posted by Cindy W on April 18, 2000, at 21:14:21
In reply to Re: Hoarding consumer goods, posted by boB on April 18, 2000, at 17:16:07
> > Cindy,
>
> I agree with you that the relation of hoarding to disease is a matter of degree, but I see the relative matter one of defining disease, not of how much one hoards and how it effects their life. A person, such as myself, might hoard as much as you do, and decline to invite people over etc, because of our sloppy house, and be unhappy, but choose not to consider it a matter of disease. It is the belief in a system of diagnosis that makes it a disease. One might even have anomylous neurobiological conditions consistant with an accepted western academic model of obsessive compulsive disorder, but accept their condition as one of nature, and an appropriately diverse behavior of a highly varied species.
>
> I don't normally confront people who choose to call their condition a disease until they insist that my condition, which is identical to theirs, is also disease. At that point, I feel people are using me unwillingly to confirm thier world view, and I resist. But I also suspect that many of the same synaptic conditions associated with OCD are typical of consumer behavior in general. Consumer behavior is not stigmatized in the same way as the hoarding of used things, as you and I do. Especially around Christmas time, people engage in a virtual orgy of mutual hoarding that is in my view pathological. The difference is that our culture does not want to consider this behavior diseased, no matter how many people are negatively effected.boB, i don't have a problem with what you want to call it...i just choose to call it ocd (my computer is acting weird, won't let me capitalize...sorry!) because it gives me a handle on strategies to try to reduce it and a common reference point with other people who choose to call it ocd. BTW, i agree that compulsive shopping probably is associated with the same "synaptic conditions." i just have found that the biological model and cognitive behavioral models at least provide a more effective treatment than the old psychodynamic theories (which postulated all kinds of weird hangups).
poster:Cindy W
thread:20422
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000411/msgs/30505.html