Compulsive hoarding can function as a symbolic substitute for unprocessed emotional wounds

Evidence

During our primary consultation, Mrs. Barbie immediately revealed too much information about her unhappy marriage. Apparently on her honeymoon her genitalia, just like Barbie’s, became invisible to her husband. From that moment on, slowly the rest of her body began to transform into the shape I saw before me. She even admitted that she was aware that she was filling the hole in her love life with revenge shopping and food. Her story reminded me of Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Grey, but in reverse. With each new Barbie she acquired, and hid in the garage, she gained another ten pounds of ugly fat. The hidden Barbie dolls remained her young beautiful self, while outside of the garage, she lost her girlish figure. — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 167

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the Portrait of Dorian Grey reversal reading of hoarding, and to broader literature on acquisition as affect-management. — connects to: Obsessive housework substitutes for emotional and sexual satisfaction — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1230; Repetition acts as the psyche’s default emergency homeostasis when pleasure alone cannot manage trauma — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 4054

Broader Connections

• Obsessive housework substitutes for emotional and sexual satisfaction #corroborates (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1230
• Repetition acts as the psyche’s default emergency homeostasis when pleasure alone cannot manage trauma #complicates (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 4054