Hoarding: When is it too much?

A recent article in Psychology Today online, published by Gillian Ragsdale Ph.DHoarding and Empathy talks about emotional attachments to the things we humans collect.
The question is raised about the healthy and useful limits of such behavior, and where the line is drawn between too little, enough, and too much.

quote:

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Do you subscribe to William Morris’s golden rule: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful? Or do you love your stuffevery useless, ugly bit of it?

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My Mom is now almost 92, and my sister and i have been cleaning up Moms excess stuff. It is a tedious emotional process. Not only must we find room for some of it, we must find room in our own homes for it which means we need to shed our own excess stuff. Just deciding who gets what, what gets thrown away or given to another is very emotional.Anxiety is involved, as it is hard to name the emotions connected with all of this nonsense. Some will be sold, of course---thats easier. Some given away. The rest gets divided with the family...eventually. Mom has fortunately made her wish lists and has very little emotional stake in all of this, thankfully for her health's sake.Do any of you find that not only is one mans junk another mans treasure, but that you have emotional connections to your own piles of junk?

I briefly perused an online book(sample pagesat least) Handbook of Culture and Consumer Behavior.The research done by consumerism advocates on our cultural habits here in the USA as well as the cultural habits and predictable tendencies of other cultures is used by big business both here and abroad.Seems Wall Street is entirely happy for every household to have at least one shed of stuff...worthless or not it was purchased by someone at some point. Edited by Phat, : clarification

One would think that it would be easy to give stuff away that not only helps others but that reduces your clutter.Mind you, its really easy for me to get rid of my sisters stuff---but she wont let me touch it.Mom has given it all up mentally though she hoarded for many years...its also easy for me to dispose of her stuff. The problem --for me at least--arises when i must dispose of my own junk.

Im curious as to the psychology behind all of this: I would think that traveling with only the pure necessities---a warm pair of clothes, another two pair, at most two pairs of shoes and a blanket and a tarp would be the easiest. Lugging around extra just seems harder.