Meanings of Compulsive Hoarding: An Archival Project-ive Life-World Approach

Abstract

Existential phenomenological research in the Duquesne school has been rooted in experiential research but also includes what von Eckartsberg (1998b) and Garza (2007) have described, respectively, as hermeneutic or archival research (for more detailed accounts of this lineage, see Polkinghorne 1989; Smith 1983, 2002; and von Eckartsberg 1998b). In such research, human cultural objects such as films, novels, and, in this case, television shows are taken up as capturing “understandings” expressive of “projecting” (Heidegger 1927/1962) and as manifesting meaning horizons of the worlds from which they are drawn and of which they are expressive (Garza 2007). This article will examine meanings of compulsive hoarding, as manifest from multiple perspectives depicted in an episode of the A&E television series Hoarders (Barnes et al. 2010), as comprising lived worlds of intersecting project-ive horizons of meaning. These results are discussed in light of contemporary psychological literature on the topic and in view of the specific knowledge claims and limitations of archival phenomenological research.

Keywords:

• archival research
• hoarding
• life world
• phenomenology
• qualitative research

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gilbert Garza

Gilbert Garza is an associate professor and graduate director of psychology at the University of Dallas. His scholarly interests include existential-phenomenological qualitative research methodology; the psychology and philosophy of embodiment; the exploration of social-cultural phenomena, including the impact of emerging technologies on meaning dimensions of human experience; and, most recently, the relationship between quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.

Brittany Landrum

Brittany Landrum is an adjunct instructor of psychology at the University of Dallas. She has been examining factors that influence client engagement in substance abuse treatment for both adults and adolescents. She has recently pursued work on integrating qualitative findings with this primarily quantitative research. Her scholarly interests include quantitative and qualitative research methodology, mixed methods, and philosophical foundations of research.