Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Literature Review Of Animal Hoarding, Corina L. Schroeder

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

This paper reviews the characteristic features, origin, and treatment of animal hoarding. It evaluates the similarities and differences of hoarding disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, showing that it seems to be more closely related to object hoarding. This disorder often originates with a traumatic life event, which triggers a psychological vulnerability to compulsively collect animals. In some cases, the hoarder was neglected by parental figures at a young age, so he or she developed relationships with animals to cope. Other theories for the origin include addiction models, delusional disorders, and dementia models. Several theories are reviewed to explain the characteristic lack …