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The Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring books are a welcome guide for clinicians faced with this often daunting problem, thoughtfully written by authoritative authors. As Steketee and Frost point out, hoarding treatment trials are often characterized by high drop out rates and poor response. Hoarding-specific CBT has greater success; these publications guide the patient and therapist through treatment tailored for the particular demands of hoarding problems.
As with other titles in the Treatments That Work series, there is a patient workbook and therapist guide that are designed to be used alongside each other; the patient workbook does not stand alone. In the Therapist Guide, the introductory chapter is a thoughtful and concise summary of the phenomenology of hoarding and the evidence base for CBT for this problem. The following chapter on assessment sets the scene for the rest of treatment - an emphasis on structured techniques, work sheets and a significant proportion of sessions conducted in the patient's home. The appendix includes all measures recommended for assessment: the saving inventory-revised, clutter image rating, saving cognitions inventory and the activities of daily living for hoarding. A detailed hoarding interview is included; this is a useful tool as normal assessment procedures might not pick up on specific hoarding issues.