5-minute read
Although Professional Organizers have been around since the 1980s, the term has only hit the mainstream in the past few years. As the broader American public learns about this industry, the term “Professional Organizer” can often be shrouded by some confusion and possibly some misconceptions.
In this post, we want to address some of the questions that we hear all the time: Do we work with hoarders? Do Professional Organizers all just have OCD? Is working with The Organizer Chicks anything like what we see on TV with Marie Kondo?
Do The Organizer Chicks work with Hoarders?
Before we fully dive into this question, we want to clarify a few important points. On the topic of hoarders, owner and founder of The Organizer Chicks, Amber Taggard, who holds a Masters of Science in Clinical Mental Health, remarks:
“…I am very leery of throwing around diagnoses…One of the things that we are always trying to do is to really advocate for people to reach out for help when it’s needed. And the last thing we want to do is stigmatize words like “hoarder” and “OCD.” So, we’re very cautious about throwing around these terms, and really advocate for them to be used very sparingly.”
In other words, while popular culture might tend to casually use the word “hoarder” to describe anybody who happens to have a lot of stuff, we want to note that “hoarder” is actually a clinical term used by mental-health professionals to diagnose people who have a more extreme experience with holding onto physical possessions.
(Click here for more information about hoarding disorders from the International OCD Foundation.)
All of that being said, the answer is yes, we do work with hoarders occasionally. However, given the extremely complex and nuanced reality of hoarding disorders, we will only work with hoarders if four criteria are met.
We want to make sure that individual self-presents, meaning that they them self (and not a concerned family member) have asked for us to come help. We always want to work toward our clients’ best interest, and for people who hoard, that means waiting until they are ready.
We want to make sure that the client it in a good, trusting relationship with a therapist or psychiatrist. Letting go can be extremely emotionally trying, and we want our clients to have access to the resources they need for this to be a healthy experience.
If the client has been prescribed medications by their physician or psychiatrist, we want to make sure the client is taking them as directed.
Members of the household need to be on board and supportive of the client who is going through this change. Sometimes, people who are in a hoarding situation are living with other people who also want to do extreme keeping. If one person is ready to make a change, if everyone else who is a part of the system is not ready to get on board and support that individual, a lot of damage to relationships can occur, and our chance at having a successful outcome is extremely low.
At the heart of these four conditions is the desire to make sure that we have a holistic approach that supports the entire person from all sides so that the outcome can be a true success. We never want to take someone’s money if we aren’t pretty sure we can reach a successful outcome.
We also want to point out that almost everyone has an area of their life where they have excess. For example, in the U.S., we have 3% of the world’s children, but we also have 40% of the world’s toys. Most of us tend to hang on to some stuff that we do not need, and so as Professional Organizers, we want people to know that there is judgment-free help available.
Whether you have a little extra clutter or if you are in a hoarding situation, our goal is simply to help people live better lives.
(To hear TOC founder Amber Taggard address the TV show about hoarders, click here to listen to our podcast episode on common misconception of Professional Organizers.)
Do Professional Organizers all have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?
Again, we want to circle back around to the comment that Amber made earlier about casually throwing around diagnostic terms. Like hoarding, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a very real condition that affects between 2 and 3 million adults and roughly 500,000 kids in the U.S. each year.
Furthermore, having actual, clinical OCD would likely make being a Professional Organizer very difficult. As Organizers, we spend a lot of time in “the messy middle,” meaning that before a situation can get better, it usually has to get worse.
For example, when we pull everything out of a client’s pantry and have the contents spread across the kitchen, it can feel pretty overwhelming – especially for someone with OCD.
From there, the client might not have the same end goal as the Professional Organizer. They might only want (or only have the budget for) the pantry to be manageable, not OCD-level perfect. Our goal is to help clients reach their goals, not to scratch our own itch. In the end, it always has to be about the client, not about us.
Is working with The Organizer Chicks anything like what we see on TV with Marie Kondo?
Here at The Organizer Chicks, we think it’s pretty awesome that Marie Kondo got her own TV show, and we love that we’re discussing organization on a national level. However, the way The Organizer Chicks work with clients tends to look pretty different than what you may have seen on TV.
Marie Kondo famously asks whether each item you own “sparks job.” While that’s a useful question, it can’t be the end of everything. Your jumper cables may not spark joy, but they can spark your car, so you might want to hang onto those.
Furthermore, Marie Kondo calls herself an organizational consultant, which is quite different than what we do. She basically comes in and teaches a regimented system, leaves and allows her client to do the work she has outlined, and then reports back to check on them.
As Professional Organizers, while we are always happy to teach clients about systems, we are also happy to work right alongside our clients to support them throughout the whole process. We often times organize spaces while the client is off doing other things. We have even completed projects while the client was out of the country! If you want to have your very own HGTV-style reveal moment” we can deliver!
As Professional Organizers, we tend to be both more hands-on and individually tailored than Marie Kondo. Her system always involves starting with clothing, then working on books, then papers, followed by miscellaneous, and finally memorabilia. We sometimes start with a very small and space for a client who’s really overwhelmed because they need to have that “win” right off the bat, because we know that success begets success. With a different client, we’re likely to jump in to the most massive, overwhelming space first because that’s what the client really needs to experience to breathe easy. Both styles have their place and can be helpful for different people, but we always want our clients to know that we are there for them every step of the way.
These are just three of the many misconceptions we encounter. Listen to our podcast episode on common misconceptions to hear more!
If you’re curious and want some more clarity about what we do, drop a comment below. As always, we would love to hear from you, and thanks for reading! We hope you have a better grasp on who we are and what we do in the world of Professional Organizing.