| Abstract: | This article reviewss the current research and latest clinical views on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in schol-age youth. Common compulsions center around washing, counting, and checking, whereas typical obsessions involove themes of aggression, contaminations, sex, order, and scrupulosity. Because those affected with OCD tend to keep their ritualistic behavious hidden, we have tended to seriously underestimate the prevalence of the condition, which authorities now believe is 20 to 40 times more common in youth than previously estimated. Discussion focuses on differentiation from normaity and related psychopathological disorders, biological and psychological factors in etiology, school adjustment, continuity from childhood to adulthood, and drung as well as behavioual therapies. Implications for school psychlgists are presented. |
