The Hoarder in You – Robin Zasio book

I’ve read a lot of books about organizing and hoarding disorder. I’ve attended a lot of classes. Dr. Robin Zasio‘s book, The Hoarder in You, is the best introduction to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a counseling modality which can be effective for treating people with hoarding disorder, that I’ve found for laypeople. Dr. Zasio, a frequent clinician counseling the participants in A & E’s TV show Hoarders, uses everyday language and everyday examples to illustrate difficult, even frightening concepts, and, equally important, provides a detailed framework for how CBT is potentially used in conjunction with other therapies, for example Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) protocols.

Dr. Zasio also convincingly places hoarding in an empathetic context of “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” She gently illustrates the unsettling concept that everyone has acquisitive instincts, even the slight possibility of hoarding tendencies. Our environment, genetic makeup and a multitude of other factors create the difference between “organized” and “disorganized,” “minimalist,” “cluttered,” “hoarded,” “collector,” and “compulsive.” Thought-provoking.