M ost of us have a complicated relationship with our stuff. There’s the endless collection of chargers and wires, the overflowing “everything drawer” in the kitchen, the tote bag of tote bags. Clutter is not a character flaw. It is, more often than not, a conversation your home is having with you about something deeper. As an integrative therapist, I regularly hear that conversation. Clutter rarely arrives as just a tidying problem. It carries anxiety, grief, identity, shame and transition. Understanding what lies beneath is often the first step to being free of it. The first thing to establish: clutter is not hoarding. “With hoarding, you have a lot of depth,” says Dr Joseph Ferrari, a psychologist at DePaul University who has spent decades studying clutter. “Toilet paper, toilet paper, toilet paper – it’s deep. With clutter, its breadth. It’s a lot of different stuff all over the place. So while hoarders are clutterers, clutterers are not necessarily hoarders.” Hoarding disorder is a clinical diagnosis.…