Having only just recently re-located to Colorado’s wondrous Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, your friendly editor now finds himself surrounded by figurative, less-inspiring mountains: moving boxes, bins, bags, more boxes. It’s floor to ceiling clutter as far as the eye can see.

Some of these boxes contain essentials, yet probably around 80 percent hold stuff. Yes, just stuff — aging items that hold some kind of sentimental meaning or future promise: old CDs, baby clothes, used ticket stubs, toys from an attic three moves ago, too many socks, ill-fitting clothing, 13 allen wrenches and screwdrivers, first-grade school projects, photo negatives, fading National Geographic magazines, gummed-up fountain pens, European postcards…

So, here’s a very timely story on the psychology of clutter and hoarding.

From the WSJ:

Jennifer James and her husband don’t have a lot of clutter—but they do find it hard to part with their children’s things. The guest cottage behind their home in Oklahoma City is half-filled with old toys, outgrown clothing, artwork, school papers, two baby beds, a bassinet and a rocking horse.

“Every time I think about getting rid of it, I want to cry,” says Ms. James, a 46-year-old public-relations consultant. She fears her children, ages 6, 8 and 16, will grow up and think she didn’t love them if she doesn’t save it all. “In keeping all this stuff, I think someday I’ll be able to say to my children, ‘See—I treasured your innocence. I treasured you!’ “

Many powerful emotions are lurking amid stuff we keep. Whether it’s piles of unread newspapers, clothes that don’t fit, outdated electronics, even empty margarine tubs, the things we accumulate reflect some of our deepest thoughts and feelings.

Now there’s growing recognition among professional organizers that to come to grips with their clutter, clients need to understand why they save what they save, or things will inevitably pile up again. In some cases, therapists are working along with organizers to help clients confront their psychological demons.

“The work we do with clients goes so much beyond making their closets look pretty,” says Collette Shine, president of the New York chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. “It involves getting into their hearts and their heads.”

For some people—especially those with big basements—hanging onto old and unused things doesn’t present a problem. But many others say they’re drowning in clutter.

“I have clients who say they are distressed at all the clutter they have, and distressed at the thought of getting rid of things,” says Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., who makes house calls, in extreme cases, to help hoarders.

In some cases, chronic disorganization can be a symptom of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and dementia—all of which involve difficulty with planning, focusing and making decisions.

The extreme form, hoarding, is now a distinct psychiatric disorder, defined in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 as “persistent difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their value” such that living areas cannot be used. Despite all the media attention, only 2% to 5% of people fit the criteria—although many more joke, or fear, they are headed that way.

Difficulty letting go of your stuff can also go hand in hand with separation anxiety, compulsive shopping, perfectionism, procrastination and body-image issues. And the reluctance to cope can create a vicious cycle of avoidance, anxiety and guilt.

In most cases, however, psychologists say that clutter can be traced to what they call cognitive errors—flawed thinking that drives dysfunctional behaviors that can get out of hand.

Among the most common clutter-generating bits of logic: “I might need these someday.” “These might be valuable.” “These might fit again if I lose (or gain) weight.”

“We all have these dysfunctional thoughts. It’s perfectly normal,” Dr. Rego says. The trick, he says, is to recognize the irrational thought that makes you cling to an item and substitute one that helps you let go, such as, “Somebody else could use this, so I’ll give it away.”

He concedes he has saved “maybe 600” disposable Allen wrenches that came with IKEA furniture over the years.

The biggest sources of clutter and the hardest to discard are things that hold sentimental meaning. Dr. Rego says it’s natural to want to hang onto objects that trigger memories, but some people confuse letting go of the object with letting go of the person.

Linda Samuels, president of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, an education and research group, says there’s no reason to get rid of things just for the sake of doing it.

“Figure out what’s important to you and create an environment that supports that,” she says.

Robert McCollum, a state tax auditor and Ms. James’s husband, says he treasures items like the broken fairy wand one daughter carried around for months.

“I don’t want to lose my memories, and I don’t need a professional organizer,” he says. “I’ve already organized it all in bins.” The only problem would be if they ever move to a place that doesn’t have 1,000 square feet of storage, he adds.

Sometimes the memories people cling to are images of themselves in different roles or happier times. “Our closets are windows into our internal selves,” says Jennifer Baumgartner, a Baltimore psychologist and author of “You Are What You Wear.”

“Say you’re holding on to your team uniforms from college,” she says. “Ask yourself, what about that experience did you like? What can you do in your life now to recapture that?”

Somebody-might-need-this thinking is often what drives people to save stacks of newspapers, magazines, outdated electronic equipment, decades of financial records and craft supplies. With a little imagination, anything could be fodder for scrapbooks or Halloween costumes.

For people afraid to toss things they might want in the future, Dr. Baumgartner says it helps to have a worst-case scenario plan. “What if you do need that tutu you’ve given away for a Halloween costume? What would you do? You can find almost anything on eBay.

Read the entire story here.

Image courtesy of Google search.