Read Parade Magazine today? If not, I think the article will appear online at their site later in the week. Right now, they have a link to the hoarding page on OC foundation.

I personally do not find all the guidelines and explanations in their article relevant to me but that's why knowing real people directly (if only online) is more helpful than knowing those people at one remove, through the eyes of the researchers who study them. (though sometimes they are studying the very people one can meet in online support! Still, not all viewpoints make it into the textbooks and articles)

My personal experience is that focused online support groups, particularly with access to trained and proficient therapist advisors, provide some strong aha! moments but also action must accompany these insights, else you're just an enlightened hoarder. And these ladies here can't be beat for fighting their way out of the squalor trenches. Me, though, I could not have just cleaned and cleared and remained in the dark about the distorted thought patterns and disguised fears that got me shoulder deep into hoarding and squalor. Also, I think it's important to be prepared that clearing the excess will quite usually provoke strong anxiety, grief, fears to emerge. All the things that were kept down by being overstuffed with possessions. The hoards almost sit on a person's fears.

My best advice: learn all you can. It's much easier when a panicky thought storms you, for you to be able to say, "oh , poo, I know what that is"