Understanding OCD and Its Impact on Childhood Development

Posted on Dec 6, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

OCD: Obsessions and compulsions are the presence of persistent and recurrent thoughts or behaviors severe enough to cause marked distress, a significant loss of time in their construction, and interference with the usual routine of the child, or school functioning.
Relationships:
  • Contamination, germs, and dirt.
  • Intense fear for oneself or family members.
  • Symmetry, order, and accuracy.
  • Moral scruples and religious content.
  • Concern for waste or body fluids.
  • Lucky or unlucky numbers.
  • Thoughts, images, or fantasies of sexual content.
  • Fear of harming others or oneself.
  • Concern over house cleaning.
Compulsive Behaviors: These are repetitive behaviors that serve as a response to an obsession or are performed according to rigid rules that should be followed strictly, such as:
  • Excessive washing
  • Repetition
  • Testing
  • Rituals to prevent infection
  • Counting
  • Sorting symmetrically
  • Measures to prevent damage
Human Development:
Biological Factors: Establishing the potential inheritance determines a certain range of reaction to the opportunities offered by the environment. There are many differences between individuals.
Environmental Factors: Heredity and maturation, together with the environment, are factors that are assumed.
Cognitive Factors: These are also the product of environmental and biological factors.
Stages of development include:
  • Pre-natal (fertilization to birth)
  • Children (birth to 6 years)
  • Children (6 to 12 years)
  • Adolescents (13 to 20 years)
  • Youth (20 to 25 years)
  • Adulthood (25 to 60 years)
  • Aging (60 to death)
In children, social phobias may manifest as crying, stuttering, paralysis, hugging or clinging to close family members, and abstaining from social interactions, leading to silence. Older children may appear too timid in social settings away from family, avoid contact with others, refuse to participate in team games, and typically remain in a secondary position in social activities, always trying to hold on to their older relatives.
Neurotic Disorders: These are understood as durable disturbances with no tendency to spontaneous remission, where anxiety is a central psychopathological phenomenon.
School Phobia: This is generally a manifestation of anxiety disorders.
Identification (Interview):
  • Factors related to school
  • Negative life events
Manifestations:
  • Motor or behavioral
  • Psychophysiological
  • Experiential cognitive
Phobia: This is a marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood).
Types include:
  • Animal
  • Environmental
  • Situational
  • Blood-injection
Social Phobia: This is a marked and persistent fear of one or more social situations or performance situations in which the person is exposed to people who do not belong to their family or to possible scrutiny by others.


Childhood Depression: This disorder is characterized by an alteration in mood, accompanied by behavioral changes at school, family, and social settings. The depressed mood persists and interferes with the capabilities and actions of the person, occurring in various forms with variable degrees and duration.
Criteria for Major Depressive Episode:

  1. Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., crying). In children and adolescents, the mood can be irritable.
  2. Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities most of the day, nearly every day.
  3. Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.

Criteria for a Manic Episode:

  1. A distinct period of abnormal mood that is persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable, lasting at least 1 week.
  2. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted:
    • Exaggerated or grandiose self-esteem
    • Decreased need for sleep
    • Pressure to keep talking

Dysthymic Depressive Disorder: This is characterized by at least 2 years in which there were more days with a depressive mood without meeting the criteria for a major depressive episode, along with other depressive symptoms.
Cyclothymic Disorder: This is characterized by at least 2 years of numerous episodes of hypomanic symptoms not meeting the criteria for a manic episode and numerous periods of depressive symptoms not meeting the criteria for a major depressive episode.

Component of Self-Esteem:

  • Social area
  • Academic area
  • Family area
  • Affective area
  • Body image

The Anxiety Disorders: These are expected in children as part of their emotional development, emerging from 6 months to 3 years and may gradually decline until the beginning of the school stage. Reactions of development can be seen as discrete signs of the link-separation process.
OCD Treatment: This includes cognitive-behavioral therapy and pharmacological interventions.

The Disorder: This is characterized by the presence of aggressive behaviors, threats, intimidation, provocation of fights, use of weapons, physical cruelty to people and/or animals, stealing with confrontation and intimidation, sexual violence, and grave violations of standards. In the genesis of conduct disorder, less severe behaviors often appear first, while others may develop later.