Cognitive-behavioral therapy for hoarding in the context of contamination fears.

Difficulty discarding and excessive acquiring can be treated using specialized cognitive-behavioral treatment that includes motivational interviewing, skills training, practice sorting and discarding, and cognitive restructuring. Early psychotherapy efforts to treat hoarding have proved less effective than this combination of methods targeted at the characteristic features of hoarding. Treatment strategies are illustrated through a case example of a woman struggling with both hoarding and contamination concerns.