A quick visit to The Container Store at the mall will reveal that people have a need to store what they have collected which begs the question of why people collect things in the first place. Some collect stamps, some like Teddy Bears and there are others who love coins or stamps. Did you know that President Teddy Roosevelt was a serious taxidermist (collector of dead animals by mounting and stuffing them)? Gertrude and Leo Stein collected paintings from guys like Picasso and Matisse.

Since many of my patients seem to like to collect things like stuffed animals, cars, watches, or homes, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to do a column on why folks buy, save and collect these objects. I planned on doing a piece on this subject until I awoke this morning and realized I could not relate to this compulsion.

So with a deadline looming, I ran to my closet to throw on some clothes and get to the store to buy the Sunday New York Times in the hope that something in the Arts and Leisure section would inspire me with a subject to write about. The Super Bowl perhaps, maybe the Olympics or something about Ukraine vs. Russia.

But as I looked down to find a pair of shoes to put on, I was astounded at the number of new and old shoes I seem to have accumulated and then said yes, I do need to write about collectibles if for no other reason than to save me money. All those shoes you see in the photo are part of my unholy collection of shoes from Santoni’s from Italy, Brooks Brothers, Hubbard, Johnston and Murphy, Cole Haan, Ferragamo. These are not cheap shoes and I estimate that the entire collection cost over $10,000.

If that’s not bad enough, a careful inspection showed me that they are all like new and still fit me. So exactly why do I need all these shoes? A rationalization is that since I developed ingrown toenails as part of the heinous aging process, I needed more comfortable shoes and found the answer at Eric Comfort Shoes of Williston Park, the little shoe store that could. But that reason is a cop out.

Why do people collect things? The motive to collect things varies and includes collecting as an investment, a way to preserve the past, to fill a psychological void, to stand out in the crowd, to experience the challenge of hunting an item down or for the joy of classifying things.

Sigmund Freud weighed in about hoarding and felt it goes back to toilet training where flushing our waste down the toilet was enough of a shock that we would spend our adult life trying to regain control over the lost items. And who am I to argue with Freud? He is right about most things.

My favorite artist is Jasper Johns, an artist famous for collecting images he keeps working on. He perpetually hoards his past images and refuses to let them go by using them in the next canvas. His continuous efforts to retrieve and hold onto the past is seen in his series called “Souvenir,” which is a group of works containing among other things a flashlight, a mirror and one of those souvenir plates with a photo of his face on it that he bought while vacationing in Hawaii. Here he is looking back to his past, in this case a vacation, and holding onto it for dear life, almost like a postcard to himself.

My preferred theory about why people want to collect and hold onto things is taken from Christopher Bollas’ concept of “Transformational Objects.” Bollas is a highly regarded psychoanalyst who believes that memories of earliest experiences with mother manifest themselves in the adult’s endless unconscious quest for an object that promises to transform the person into a better version of himself.

Kind of like what Perceval and Sir Galahad did in “The Quest for the Holy Grail” where the grail is this hidden ephemeral object which promises to convert men into stronger and younger versions of themselves.The theme of the quest for the Holy Grail is reflected in the popular Indiana Jones films by Steven Spielberg.

So, whether one collects to achieve status, have fun, to regain the past or to recreate oneself into a younger and better version, it seems advisable to understand the real reason for your purchases. That way you do not wind up with too many cars, too many stuffed Teddy Bears or, in my case, too many shoes.