Hoarding and Hebb’s Law- Part 2

“Neurones that fire together, wire together” – Donald Hebb

The last blog explored neuroplasticity and Hebb’s law- understanding how changes in the brain can support behaviour. If you missed it, you can give it a read HERE.

There’s several important ways that Hebb’s law influences how hoarding behaviour comes about and how it is maintained.

At it’s core, Hebb’s law explains why we get in particular mental “ruts” and habits.

Below are some practical examples of how Hebb’s law and neuroplasticity

Difficulty discarding

For those who hoard, discarding items is not just difficult but can be distressing. However, keeping a hold of possessions can relieve this distressing feeling.

This means there’s 2 pairs of neurones that are firing together.

• Neurones responsible for discarding firing at the same times as those for distress signalling
• Neurones responsible for keeping a hold of things and distress relief

In turn this means that discarding becomes more distressing and keeping a hold of things more associated with relief- these ways of thinking become increasingly entrenched.

This is a bit like when a tractor drives through a field, making tyre tracks- each time the tractor takes a particular route, the tracks get deeper, making it harder to take a different route!

Fear of forgetting

Those who hoard often score slightly worse in memory tests, compared to those who don’t hoard. Additionally, those who hoard generally have less confidence in their memory [1].

Psychologists have shown that objects can be really good cues that help us to recall memories [2]- So keeping a hold of things to help us remember definitely works.

So hoarding can increase memory confidence through the following mechanism:

Objects present-> Successful Recall -> Memory confidence

Object present -> Memory confidence

However, this means that the thought of objects not being present is associated with a fear of forgetting, making hoarding more likely.

In turn, a person never gets the opportunity to show that they are able to recall without objects around them, meaning that their memory confidence becomes increasingly reliant to having objects around them.

NOTE: Memory confidence is not the same as memory!

Hoarding as soothing

For many people who hoard, both keeping a hold of items and acquiring items can act as a source of soothing [3].

These behaviours therefore become associated with the feeling of soothing in the brain.

As such we often see that in response to emotional distress, or a bad situation a person who hoards may look to keep items and/or acquire items as a way of managing their emotions.

So what can we do?

So far, we’ve looked at how Hebb’s law can CAUSE some of these difficulties.

But there’s good news- we can use the same principles in order to help address some issues associated with hoarding.

For example, in scenarios where a person is finding difficulty discarding, Hebb’s law can help us make it less difficult.

Often, when people find discarding difficult, they will avoid it as much as possible- meaning this way of thinking becomes more and more entrenched.

However, if a person is able to discard and they get a positive feeling, this will begin the process of unlearning the association of discarding and distress.

This positive feeling does not have to be one of elation- even the thought of “that wasn’t as bad as I thought”  will help the brain re-wire.

Sometimes people find it helpful to reward themselves when discarding, to help build that habit! For example- if a person treats themselves to a nice cup of coffee after discarding, this will increase the association between discarding and the pleasure of drinking a coffee. In fact after a while, discarding in it’s self may become a positive experience.

Where hoarding behaviours act as a form of soothing, it may be better to replace these behaviours with alternative behaviours that sooth, so that the neurones associated with soothing and hoarding do not fire together so often.

Not only does understanding how our brain makes physical changes helps make sense of our thoughts and behaviours, but it also helps validate the person’s experiences too. There are REAL and PHYSICAL changes underpinning their hoarding behaviour, helping break down the stereotype that those who hoard are “lazy” or are choosing to not improve their situation. There are real brain structures that make hoarding so difficult.

REFERENCES

1  Hartl, T. L., Frost, R. O., Allen, G. J., et al. (2004). Actual and perceived memory deficits in individuals with compulsive hoarding. Depression and Anxiety, 20(2), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20026

2  Kirk, M., & Berntsen, D. (2018). A short cut to the past: Cueing via concrete objects improves autobiographical memory retrieval in Alzheimer’s disease patients. Neuropsychologia, 110, 113–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.028

3  Taylor, J. K., Theiler, S., Nedeljkovic, M., & Moulding, R. (2019). A qualitative analysis of emotion and emotion regulation in hoarding disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 75(3), 520–545. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22721