Reader Guides
Discussion questions for general readers and mental health professionals are presented below. Read online or download a PDF for each Reader Guide.
If you and your book group wish to dig deeper into Lost Found Kept, the author is happy to meet with your reading group anywhere in the world via video conferencing or in-person at a local event.
Guide 1 General Book Clubs
The author opens the book with quotes by poets Adrienne Rich and Rainer Maria Rilke. How do you think these set up the themes of the book?
Did the book challenge any preconceived ideas or beliefs you had about hoarding and mental illness? In what ways?
Did the book cause you to reflect about your own family dynamics growing up? Or your experiences with aging relatives/parents? What insights did you come away with?
Who was your favorite character? What character did you identify with most? If you had strong feelings about other characters, why?
The setting of the author’s childhood and young adulthood is primarily suburban New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. How do you think this setting contributed to the motivations and actions of her and her mother?
How did the interplay between past and present contribute to the overall impact of the book and your understanding of the characters responses and motivations?
How honest do you think the author was being? What gaps do you wish the author had filled in? Were there places you thought she shared too much?
Shame is a theme in this book. In what ways does the shame of others trigger our own?
Being an astronaut/astronomy/outer space is one of the metaphors found the book. Do you feel this metaphor added to your understanding of the characters or the situation?
How do you feel the references to different paintings and artwork and to making art relate to the themes of the story?
How did you respond to the descriptions of the hoarder house? Were there other memorable moments or scenes that stood out to you? Why?
Did the book title or design of the book cover mean more to you after you finished reading it?
When you consider one thing you lost, found or kept from your childhood, what comes to mind?
What family object or heirloom would you want to make sure to keep?
How did you feel about the moments of comedic relief (humor) in the book? Do you use humor as a coping mechanism?
What actions or changes, if any, do you feel compelled to make because of reading the book?
What is one question you’d like to ask the author?
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Guide 2 Mental Health/Psychology
What was your response to reading a non-clinical memoir by a psychologist who discloses information about her own complicated history?
The book opens with a quote from a poem by Adrienne Rich. Read the full poem and discuss its relationship to the process of therapy and self-understanding.
The question of diagnosis comes up in the book. As a mental health professional, how do you feel a diagnosis helps or hinders your understanding of the characters?
There are different kinds of trauma described in the book. What kinds of coping strategies do the characters utilize to deal with them? Do you feel the author was able to show resilience?
Based on your work as a mental health professional, what aspects of the author’s story could you most relate to?
How did the author demonstrate empathy through the story? Did you feel empathy for a particular character?
Was there any time you had a sense the author was withholding sensitive information about herself, her mother or other family members that would have given you a fuller picture of their dynamics?
A memoir reveals only the perspective of the author/narrator. As a mental health professional, whose perspective would you have liked to hear to have a fuller picture of the story? Who would you have wanted to avoid? Why?
Shame is a theme in this book. In what ways does the shame of others trigger our own? How do we cope with that as clinicians with our clients and in our own lives?
Hoarding Disorder is not well understood or studied. What do you know about it? What would you like to understand better about it?
The author participated in therapy at different stages of her life. How do you feel about the way these encounters were depicted? How do they help you understand the story? How do you think these experiences helped her understand the situation in her family?
Creativity is one form of resilience. How do you feel art and art making as a theme in the book reflected that?
What is one question you’d like to ask the author?
Lost Found Kept: A Memoir
by Deborah Derrickson Kossmann
Trio House Press
January 5, 2025
Paperback | 284 pages
ISBN: 978-1949487336
Print: $24.99
Winner of Trio House Press's inaugural 2023 Aurora Polaris Creative Nonfiction Award