[ricardo_nh]

I'm sorry but Freudian's universalist approach is as bullsh*t as a genetic explanation for hoarding. I agree that to make the universal claim that all hoarding is a reaction to a loss is wrong if we are talking about specific losses. But I think you are taking the concept of loss too narrowly. The idea that hoarding is a compensation for a loss is in the more general sense, as if collecting things would be a way to fill in a lack, to fill a void, that otherwise it would be too much to be dealt with. that can be a physical loss (like someone having their home taken away from them) or a more symbolic/abstract loss (someone having abusive parents that buy their children's love with toys). Every case has its own particularities, but the idea of loss in psychoanalysis is not just a mere loss of an object, but also the feeling of absence of something that was never there.