Decluttering is now a disease?

[Ultralight]

If decluttering is a disease then I would find amusement in it reaching epidemic proportions!

[rodeosweetheart]

If decluttering is a disease then I would find amusement in it reaching epidemic proportions!

I think the disease was OCD and the decluttering just a symptom. I think the article title was catchy, but misleading.
The people in the article were suffering, so that's not a good thing.
Hoarders suffer, too, and some hoarders also have OCD.

[Chicken lady]

Just an aside, you do not have to hoard trash to be a hoarder. Trash is just easy to hoard - it's free and hard to avoid completely.

[Miss Cellane]

Where does "extreme minimalism" become a problem? How can one say "this amount of stuff is just too little."?

“They’re not sleeping at night and they’re feeling jittery and irritable … they’ll sit in my office and straighten my pillows. They’re not comfortable until everything is in order.”

"Diller’s compulsive-decluttering patients, she says, sometimes describe “this tightness in their chest if they see things that should be thrown out,” one that can be eased only by getting rid of the offending objects."

You have a few seconds of peace,” she says. “Then it all comes flooding: The anxiety, the dread … It's that constant nagging. You never reach a point where you're satisfied.” Even now, after years of treatment, “I would rather throw something out and buy it again than keep it.”

Okay, so maybe it's not extreme minimalism by itself--it's the minimalism combined with the anxiety/other negative feelings about things in general. If you can't sit in a doctor's office without rearranging things, I would see that as a problem. If the person experiencing the feelings thinks there's a problem, then there's a problem.

The problem isn't being diagnosed by outsiders--the people suffering from the symptoms are the ones calling it OCD. and/or seeking help.

You can nit-pick the wording used, but clearly there are some people who struggle with any level of possessions, and they are seeking help with this.

And excessive decluttering doesn't have its own diagnosis. According to the article, it is considered to be a symptom of OCD.