Like other disorders, nobody is born with it which means that there is an origin in the persons’ life where it was created, therefore making hoarding behaviour the symptom of an underlying schema or belief.

There are many reasons why someone may have developed a hoarding disorder, those may include: 

•Bullying or abuse. – Being treated negatively by loved ones or peers in childhood may cause someone to distance from people and place value and emotion on inanimate objects.

•Grief or loss. – Someone losing a loved one may trigger a compulsion to accumulate items associated with that person or items attached to memories relating to them.

•Learned from someone. – Someone with hoarding disorder may have witnessed someone close to them display hoarding behaviours and were exposed to the emotions they experienced in the process.

•Negative association to discarding. – Someone may have been punished in childhood for throwing away an item they were not supposed to, or they may have thrown something away that they later wished they had kept, triggering emotions of guilt and remorse and thus causing them to struggle with decision-making and to perceive discarding as having negative consequences.

•Traumatic Event. – Someone may have experienced an incident that was out of their control and respond by accumulating objects they perceive they need, despite this behaviour in itself being excessive and moving out of their control.