Disposaphobia is the fear of getting rid of stuff. Until today, I would never describe or think of my tendency to work in clutter as a phobia. I wear it as a badge of honor. I prefer to think of it as an indicator of my creativity. Doesn't everyone know that creative people have cluttered offices?

In response to a piece by Clive James in the BBC magazine, The brilliance of creative chaos in which James describes the clutter in his office, a commenter says,

Don't worry Clive, it just means that like me you're a creative "right brainer". You look for creative solutions to problems whereas our organised "left brain" brothers look for logical solutions to problems. Chaos breeds new ideas whereas as Order simply perpetuates old ones. Chaos is a creative force- order a maintaining one.
Matthew, Staines

That's the kind of comment that warms the cockles of my heart. It makes me feel connected to Mr. James. To all people creative. We are of the same ilk. The cluttered office ilk.

Are you familiar with Chris Argyris' Ladder of Inference? It's a mental model explained in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building A Learning Organization. Basically, the theory is that of all the observable data that we can select to help make decisions, we only select data that reinforces our current belief system. It's called the Reflective Loop.

So in my case,my reflective loop takes me smack dab to Clive Jame's article, and it makes me feel good about myself.  Instead of seeing clutter as a potential problem. I seek the data the reaffirms that I am a creative individual instead of one suffering from the dregs of disposaphobia.

Now, for those of you familiar with Argyris' Ladder,you know that you can break the reflective loop by becoming aware of your own assumptions, and testing them by getting information that may stretch your belief system.

That is what happened today. I'm climbing down my ladder and looking a data that says, there could be a psychological explanation -- not a creative talent explanation-- as to why I still have CD's on my office shelf when I long ago uploaded them to iTunes,  unpacked boxes from 2005 when I moved to my current home, and stationary and the promotion kit to a newspaper column I once tried to syndicate. There's more. Lot's more. I have lots of stuff from the past on the shelves and drawers in my office.

Feng Shui Expert, Ellie Marshall sites a Stanford University study on disposaphobia that says it is a fear- based condition affecting just 5% of the population.

The study, conducted by Dr. Brian Knutson of Stanford University, found that some people can have an 'over attachment' to items that they own. They believe their possessions have many positive features even if they have owned them for a short time. Hence, these people, can not bear to part with even a piece of paper!

 

"When they get something, they just can't stand the thought of losing it. People don't like the thought that they might be deprived of that thing." says Brian Knutson, Ph.D., study author and associate of psychology and neuroscience at Stanford University.

Heather Grimshaw wrote a piece for the Denver Post on the Psychology of Clutter which poses the theory that in addition to the fear sited in the Stanford study, those of us who clutter  also suffer from low self-esteem and an inability to make decisions.

"It can be an obsessive disorder in which the person is immobilized in terms of action," says Elizabeth Robinson, a psychologist in Denver. "I think there is a great fear of making a decision that could be wrong, of feeling something like regret or loss or guilt about getting rid" of things.

While I have no problem making decisions, I do find it emotional to put my past in the trash. Even if it's that pile of 1994 canceled checks from my old business. It would make me sad ( okay maybe for just a moment, but  it still would  be a sad moment) to shred them and dispose of them, it would mean I will not have anything tangible from that previous experience. I like having tangible reminders of my past, it makes me feel more connected to it.

From that same article a spiritual counselor and clairvoyant Krista Socash likens the inability to throw out stuff as a drug addiction.

These are generally people who cannot walk through their rooms without tipping piles and become panicked by the thought of sorting through it all.

"These people are in a lot of pain," she says. "Much like people who use drugs as an (escape), some people cannot get rid of their stuff."

 

Until today, I thought of it as just being sentimental. I had no idea how much fear, pain, low self- esteem,and addiction I was exhibiting with my clutter. What I thought was comfort-stuff --  every time I open a draw and see those checks, CD's and old stationary, I always smile, is actually a window into my pained and distorted soul.

Everlasting Designs has a post on the Psychology of Clutter and tells me the tendency to clutters is rooted in "the endowment effect."

people (and some animals) place a higher value on objects they own than objects that they do not. It's believed to hearken back to a time when giving away something could help with survival or reproduction. At the risk of losing our essential survival tools we overvalue what we have and undervalue what we can gain often at the expense of our own peace of mind.

In other words that stack of 1995 canceled checks is an overvalued item and if I would just shred them, I would be released.

In writing about the psychology of organization, Christy Angel suggests that many of us are afraid to throw things out because of the space or void it creates.Over at The World of Psychology,Therese J. Borchard says that human beings crave order.

Cleaning is a therapeutic activity that distracts your stressed-out brain while delivering it something it desperately wants: order. As an architect, Eric is always telling me how my mess contributes to my anxiety–that the endless piles of paper on my desk can very definitely sabotage my mood. Every time I take his advice–and spend a day purging and organizing–I realize how right he is.

The more I read, the more despondent I got. Until I found a blog called The Psychology of Clutter. When I clicked, I was taken to this page.

Priceless. Appropriate. And to me, laugh out loud funny.

Elana writes about business culture at FunnyBusiness