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Vocabulary: Hoarding/Related

Terms COH made up by members in our online support group:

COH™: “Children of Hoarders“

• “Clean Hoard” A term we came up with for hoarding situations that don’t have the animal/human waste…or where our parents don’t necessarily let the dirty dishes pile up, let the litter boxes overflow, keep their bathrooms as clean as they can, etc. They just have a TON of STUFF.

“Dirty Hoard” A term we call the opposite of ‘clean hoard’-which sometimes may include their personal hygiene practices as well.

HP: Hoarding Parent

Shared by a group member:

• J.A.D.E., Don’t Do It
You do not need to Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain (shared with our group by a wise member. Read more about JADE at the Alanon Forums.

Hoarding-related terms/other terms you’ll hear kicked around:

• A.P.S. Adult Protective Services

• CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is designed to break two types of associations that occur in OCD: The association between objects and situations that cause distress, the association between carrying out ritualistic behavior to decrease distress. A method of therapy for treating Hoarding. The goal is to demonstrate we can have thoughts and experience distress without participating in rituals (rituals are
“banned” for full immersion in anxiety without losing control or “having to shut anxiety down.” This is to show rituals are short term anxiety relievers that in fact increase obsessions, and that rituals are not the only way to decrease anxiety.

• Churn/Churning: The act of moving things around and not getting rid of anything

• C.P.S.: Child Protective Services

D.H.S./D.H.H.S.: Department of Health (DHHS=Dept. Health & Human Services)

• Exposure (E.R.P.=Exposure Response/Ritual Prevention)
A procedure/therapy technique in which you are purposely confronted with objects or situations that
promote distress and stay in those situations without performing rituals (“banned”) long enough for anxiety to decrease by itself.

Habituation-The process of learning to tolerate an anxiety-producing situation through exposure.

P.O.A.: Power of Attorney

SUDS Levels-Subjective Units of Distress. “Anxiety temperature.” A way of measuring the anxiety levels from 1-10 (re:
hoarding; while discarding or at place of acquisition.)

Do you know of a term that would be helpful to add here?  Please post it below!

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