EmotionalBuzz
the resource for meridian energy therapy
EFT called on to declutter a life
24 April 2012: A woman whose life – and home – were almost sinking under a tide of clutter, has been having EFT sessions to rid herself of her mania for hoarding.
The story, reported in The Guardian, described how Vasoulla Harman’s daughter Jasmine could hardly bring herself to visit her mother.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her,” she said. “It was that I literally couldn’t get into her house. There was so much stuff in the hall that the front door wouldn’t open properly and then, if you did manage to squeeze yourself in through the tiny gap, the whole place was piled high with junk. You could barely stand upright and most of the rooms were completely inaccessible.”
Vasoulla’s pathological hoarding resulted in her five-bedroomed London house becoming crammed with belongings and furniture; clothes, toys, books, pictures, family memorabilia, bric-a-brac of all kinds covered every surface.
Some rooms were stacked floor to ceiling, like an unkempt corner of a warehouse.
“It’s like living in a storage facility,” said Jasmine, whose childhood life, and that of her siblings, was dominated by her mother’s behaviour.
Jasmine eventually sought professional help for her mother, but discovered that hoarding disorder is not officially classified as a mental illness.
According to the article in The Guardian, Vasoulla has undergone emotional freedom technique to help her face up to, and deal with, her difficult memories, with encouraging results.
“About an hour after one session, Mum turned to me and said ‘The books can go’.”
Last year Jasmine, a television presenter who fronts the Channel 4 property show A Place in the Sun, made a documentary about her mother. A follow up programme, which deals less with the overwhelming symptoms of hoarding and more with the fundamental question of why people become hoarders, is to be aired on BBC shortly. Jasmine has also set up a website, helpforhoarders.co.uk, that offer mutual support for hoarders and their families.
The site contains links to medical resources for people affected to use, including therapists who specialise in treating the affliction.