Obsessive Record Collecting Explained?

Woebot

Well-known member
OK, obvious this is a serious issue, but I couldn't but laugh at the example given:

"Some of the patients had filled their homes with vast quantities of junk mail or broken appliances, for example."

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Specific brain regions may explain hoarding behaviour

People who hoard apparently useless items may be able to blame an area of their brain, say US researchers.
The University of Iowa team pinpointed a region in the frontal lobe that appeared to control this behaviour.
Researchers have linked hoarding to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but it is not known what causes it and whether it is a unique condition. The study in the journal Brain adds to growing evidence that hoarding has its own specific underlying mechanism.

Useless junk

OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the person is compelled by irrational fears and thoughts to repeat seemingly needless actions over and over again. It can manifest itself in repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand washing, cleaning or repeated checking. But some people with OCD have a compulsion to hoard things, which is above and beyond the avid interest of an average stamp collector or a train spotter.

Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles have already shown that people with OCD who also hoard show different brain activity patterns to other OCD patients. To gain a better understanding of the cause of obsessive collecting behaviour, Dr Steven Anderson and his team studied 13 people who had developed a hoarding compulsion after sustaining a brain injury.

Hoarding was defined as abnormal if it was extensive, the squirreled items were not useful or aesthetic and the individual was unwilling to discard any of their collection. Some of the patients had filled their homes with vast quantities of junk mail or broken appliances, for example.

They scanned the patients and compared their brain scans with those taken from other 73 brain injured patients who displayed no abnormal collecting behaviour.

Frontal lobe

The scans showed up an obvious difference.

Dr Anderson said: "A pretty clear finding jumped out at us.

"Damage to a part of the frontal lobes of the cortex, particularly on the right side, was shared by the individuals with abnormal behaviour.

"Patients with OCD and some other disorders, such as schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome and certain dementias, can have similar pathological collecting behaviour but we don't have a pointer to located where in the brain the problem is occurring.


"Our hope is that our findings with these brain lesion studies will lead to insights in these conditions as well."

Dr Naomi Fineberg, an expert in OCD at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, said: "These studies, which are really in their infancy, are starting to confirm that hoarding may be different from the rest of OCD.

"The hoarding type is unresponsive to normal OCD treatments, so if we can identify areas of the brain specific for hoarding this will have quite profound implications.

"The more we can start to understand about the neurobiology of hoarding the more we can start to think about targeting treatments accordingly."


But Professor Paul Salkovskis from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Knowing which area of the brain is affected does not help you in treatment one little bit.

"Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem.

"At this point there is no evidence that there is any biological difference between these patients.

"The answer is cognitive behavioural therapy."


Do you have experience of excessive hoarding? Send us your comments.


 

john eden

male pale and stale
WOEBOT said:
Dr Naomi Fineberg, an expert in OCD at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Welwyn Garden City,
I was born there! I hope I haven't fallen for some kind of sinister science experiment! :eek:

WOEBOT said:
"Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem.

I like that, I think I might nick it for my user id here...


WOEBOT said:
Do you have experience of excessive hoarding?


The Kilroy Team would like to hear from you...
 

cortempond

Active member
Gimme More More More

It's a great subject, because I definitely suffer from compulsive collectitis.

BlissBlog discussed this issue a while back -- the compulsion to have as well as know everything out there. Some of this compulsion might have to be related to keeping up with a scene or ahead of it. To be on the vanguard means searching for what's new - how every trend or movement begins with those who are able to seek and grab onto the new new thing, such as Grime, Two-Step, etc. This desire creates a compulsion, the DJ is a perfect example -- to be popular means to have not just what's latest but what everyone doesn't have. Northern Soul DJ's seeking every rare 45'' to play to their crowd, rare pressings, white labels.

I once was one of those people, but it's very time consuming, the research, going to clubs, scouring places for that rare find. It became anxiety inducing. There is no way to be satisfied because there is always something new coming out -- something you have to hear or have -- possess it, hold it in your hands, like the Holy Grail. But it is not possessing it that provides the satisfaction, it is what went into you finding it, the quest for it that provides the kick.

I collect Morricone, and his scores number more than 300 (and counting). Right now, I hold more than 100 on vinyl and 70 or so on CD. But there is always some rare edition or release of his that comes out, and it's off to seek it out.

It is the same with film -- I am a compulsive taper and have to collect everything out there by certain directors -- with me it's Godard, Chabrol, Miike, and numerous other directors whose films I need to see and possess. Especially films not yet available in the States. It's not just seeing the film -- I have to have it in my collection.

Right now, there is more than I can possibly ever listen to and watch. My wife asks me if I will ever have enough. My answer is that I will never have enough. There will always be something new that I have to have.

I'd like to hear what other people think (and feel) about this subject.
 
This compulsion to 'own' is what I've been trying to shake-off for the past year. Knowledge is still essential - but do we really need these objects to fulfill our lives? Since going 'virtual' with my music collecting, I've felt a great weight off my shoulders (and my shelves!) although, ironically, the lack of full-length, high-quality downloadable Dub/Techstep MP3s (legal or otherwise) has forced me back to vinyl. Just put in an order for a stack of twelves at Black Market, but that's down to market forces rather than a regression to previous habits - I hope!!

Still, I guess even collecting MP3s is a sign that the obsessive 'hunter-gatherer' compulsion is still very much in control...it just takes-up less space.....
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
cortempond said:
Right now, there is more than I can possibly ever listen to and watch. My wife asks me if I will ever have enough. My answer is that I will never have enough. There will always be something new that I have to have.

Fuckin' ell. Tell me about it ;)

Just fascinated to hear about all the movies you've clocked and want to know about your soundtracks, which is, i spose a text-book data-junkie reaction!!!! Morricone is like a bottomless pit! Soundtracks are a bottomless pit! Other bottomless pits include Reggae 7"s. Actually i tend to try and avoid these avenues, try to shore them up tactically so as to avoid being swallowed.

This is where I tell you not to sweat it: Don't sweat it! Its a valuable pursuit this "collectivitis" just be sure to share your knowledge and bequeath your collection to a good library in your will.
 

chantler

Member
WOEBOT said:
Its a valuable pursuit this "collectivitis" just be sure to share your knowledge and bequeath your collection to a good library in your will.

words of wisdom there... but do library's still go for such a donation - probably an idea to sure up something in advance - though that sounds a bit morbid...
 

nick.K

gabba survivor
i can't/don't want to stop collecting music. there's always more to find, always something new. and my father was diagnosed OCD so there might be something to what Woebot's suggesting
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
I have mild OCD-y tendencies (more of a charming character trait than a problem, you get me), so try to keep a determined lid on my record collecting. I dunno, if I buy too many records, I feel like I'm not really feeling them- rather than living the music, I'm just clutching at straws, feeling by proxy.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
gluttons for vinyl

Diggedy Derek said:
I dunno, if I buy too many records, I feel like I'm not really feeling them- rather than living the music, I'm just clutching at straws, feeling by proxy.

"buy too many records"--i thought you Music & Video Exchange bods creamed off all the good stuff people bring in to sell and never need to buy anything?

(i worked at M&VE for three days, would have been my dream job + music journalism on the side but got given the heave -- deemed not mean enough to do the pricing!)

but otherwise totally concur with Diggedy's sentiment... often think i had a richer, deeper, happier experience of music when i was a teenager and could only afford one album and a couple of singles a month

simon silver dollar's experiment with listening to just one record and one record only for a week was quite interesting, deep listening a la teenagehood where if you made a purchase you didn't give up on it, you listened to it over and over, grew to like then love the growers
 

mms

sometimes
gosh how many people on this board worked once at mve. i worked there for a bit but the dustiness totally fucked me up.
i read somewhere, i think it was john fahey in an interview in the wire, that his obsession with vinyl was, according to his analyst, an attempt to reclaim lost shit. sort of makes sense that one.

one of the most rewarding thing about record shopping is the poker game with the shopkeeper, keeping face when finding a record that you know has more value, or more value to a group of people, or will go up in value, that's at a very low price in the shop.


talking of releniqishing your record collection, the john peel archive is being worked on, all the sessions are going on the net.
i think his collection is going to the british library last i heard.
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Yeah, MVE is certainly a breeding ground for lots of music obsessives (as well as a breeding ground for all sorts of dust related coughs and sneezes as you say, MMS!).

It's inevitable that staff cream off the good stuff, for sure. I work in the office rather than in a particular shop, so I'm behind the pecking order in that respect- although I've been here a [rather startling] 7 years so I'm part of the furniture by now. The real creamers are the people who sit on the stools in their own shops, day in day out- that's a great position to be in.

got given the heave -- deemed not mean enough to do the pricing!

Ha! It may be run by an old hippy, but it is after all a pretty pure example of free market Kapitalism. Buy stuff from people who don't know about it, whack the price up, sell it to record-obsessive-compulsive-disorderists. (ROC'D?)
 

egg

Dumpy's Rusty Nut
WOEBOT said:
Hoarding was defined as abnormal if it was extensive, the squirreled items were not useful or aesthetic and the individual was unwilling to discard any of their collection.
Fraid you're not abnormal, folks, unless you find you have to hold on to the crap stuff too!
Diggedy Derek said:
I dunno, if I buy too many records, I feel like I'm not really feeling them- rather than living the music, I'm just clutching at straws, feeling by proxy.
Been there......... Just listening to side after side of other people's expressions of how they were feeling at the time, never quite what I wanted to hear. Cure for frustration - sold the lot, bought a studio and started writing my own music - much less angry and frustrated now.
Nick Gutterbreakz said:
I guess even collecting MP3s is a sign that the obsessive 'hunter-gatherer' compulsion is still very much in control...it just takes-up less space.....
Hm interesting - I thought I was purged because I now have no vinyl/care not a jot about CDs. But now you come to mention the huntergatherer compulsion - I find I now am kind of desperately hunting new sounds and tracks, listening, absorbing what makes them special and filing them mentally. Takes up even less space than MP3s...
 

hamarplazt

100% No Soul Guaranteed
egg said:
Fraid you're not abnormal, folks, unless you find you have to hold on to the crap stuff too!
Eh, I kind of do, I'm afraid. It's not that I don't want to get rid of it, but since it's crap it's mostly not something I can sell, and then the alternative is to bin it, and I just can't get myself to throw vinyl away.

Furthermore, when I try to find records in my collection that I can gen rid of, I usually just hear a little of them before I decide, and that's a bad idea, because I always end up thinking, "well, there's a few interesting bits here and there, it could come in handy one day...".
 

owen

Well-known member
yeah, but sometimes you find the crap is actually good though.....i try and have a purge now and again, mostly goes to the local Scope....
the problem for me is that its something you can't stop doing, no matter how skint you are...when i was on the dole for most of last year i still bought as many records as before- except then this involved going out and buying every abba album, or cash-in jungle comps going for £1 in the MVE basement...
ah, MVE.....still not sure why i got the boot really i thought i was surly enough to fit in ;)
before my 'trial month' elapsed though i got some fine stuff in the camden basement- who chucked that acen 12" in there? there are obviously holes in the system somewhere
 

egg

Dumpy's Rusty Nut
yeh fair enough. I sold some records once (ages ago) and suffered from pain for ages - one of them was radiohead's drill ep and despite the fact i had bought it for a quid and didn't like it i was still annoyed that i'd let it go. also mystified that they wouldn't buy coldcut's big life lp off me - as that was a much better record!

so yeh, get rid of EVERYTING or nothing at all, maybe?
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
I think there are a lot of record collectors who aren’t particularly interested in music, it should therefore be seen as very much a separate hobby to the art of music loving. And yes, you could say that collectors are usually on some part of the autism/OCD (caught a skit on that Monkey Dust cartoon where this guy’s wife eventually leaves him cos he’s constantly rearranging his cd collection). I’ve tried to sell as many of my old records as a can as its dawned on me that I’m only generally interested in the last few bought (still have way too many because I don’t want to be ripped off by having a quick sale) and I’ve long realised that a mighty record collection isn’t the holy grail to winning friends and influencing people.
 

hamarplazt

100% No Soul Guaranteed
bun-u said:
I think there are a lot of record collectors who aren’t particularly interested in music, it should therefore be seen as very much a separate hobby to the art of music loving.
If anything, I'm loving music too much. I always end up thinking: "yeah ok, so it's a somewhat mediocre record, it would make no difference whatsoever if it didn't exist or I didn't own it... but... still, it's part of the whole, it fits somewhere in the great puzzle of music history, somebody tried making something worthwile, put a little of themselves in it, and even if they didn't do that great, there still should be a place in somebodys heart for it." Sometimes I wish I could just have the records I like the very best, the stuff I really really love and listen to again and again, and only buy what I really feel will last. But it just doesn't work that way with me. At all.
 
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mms

sometimes
bun-u said:
I think there are a lot of record collectors who aren’t particularly interested in music, it should therefore be seen as very much a separate hobby to the art of music loving.


yeah you definitley get status collectors who reproduce their wealth and class in their record collection by getting expensive rare but only reasonable records, but would never buy anything current or in hmv.
sorts that charter planes to countries to go and buy 7's and that, mad shit but totally missing the point.
 

geeta

Member
on the brain tip, there's a pretty interesting (and legal) study at the university of arizona that's investigating the use of psilocybin (active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms) as a potential therapy for OCD
 
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