case study of obsessive compulsive disorder

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CASE STUDY John (obsessive-compulsive disorder)

Case study details.

John is a 56-year-old man who presents to you for treatment. His symptoms started slowly; he tells you that he was always described as an anxious person and remembers being worried about a lot of things throughout his life. For instance, he reported he was very afraid he’d contract HIV by touching doorknobs, even though he tells you he knew this was “irrational.” He tells you that about 10 years ago, following a few life stressors, his anxiety and intrusive thoughts worsened significantly. He tells you he began washing his hands excessively. He reports he developed an intense fear that someone would break into the house and it would be his fault because he left something unlocked. He states that this fear led him to repeatedly check doors and windows before sleep in a specific order, which was a source of contention with his wife. He says that his fear of making a mistake also leads him to be slow to turn in work for his job, checking many times to make sure there are no mistakes, for which he gets reprimanded on occasion.

John reports that his symptoms are getting worse, which is why he has sought treatment. For example, currently he washes his hands until he finishes the whole soap bar, and his hands are cracked because they are so dry. He says he continues to check the doors and windows of his house numerous times throughout the day, not just at night, and has on occasion driven home from work to be sure everything truly was locked. If he notices even a speck of dust on the floor, he states he has the urge to clean the whole house and he often complies with that urge.

John expresses significant distress over these symptoms, as they are taking up more of his time and robbing him of his confidence, as he is increasingly distracted at work and in his family life.

• Compulsions
• Concentration Difficulties
• Intrusive Thoughts
• Ruminations

Diagnoses and Related Treatments

1. obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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• Case report
• Open access
• Published: 11 July 2020

Obsessive compulsive disorder in very young children – a case series from a specialized outpatient clinic

• Veronika Brezinka   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2192-3093 1 ,
• Veronika Mailänder 1 &
• Susanne Walitza 1  

BMC Psychiatry volume  20 , Article number:  366 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Paediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic condition often associated with severe disruptions of family functioning, impairment of peer relationships and academic performance. Mean age of onset of juvenile OCD is 10.3 years; however, reports on young children with OCD show that the disorder can manifest itself at an earlier age. Both an earlier age of onset and a longer duration of illness have been associated with increased persistence of OCD. There seems to be difficulty for health professionals to recognize and diagnose OCD in young children appropriately, which in turn may prolong the interval between help seeking and receiving an adequate diagnosis and treatment. The objective of this study is to enhance knowledge about the clinical presentation, diagnosis and possible treatment of OCD in very young children.

Case presentation

We describe a prospective 6 month follow-up of five cases of OCD in very young children (between 4 and 5 years old). At the moment of first presentation, all children were so severely impaired that attendance of compulsory Kindergarten was uncertain. Parents were deeply involved in accommodating their child’s rituals. Because of the children’s young age, medication was not indicated. Therefore, a minimal CBT intervention for parents was offered, mainly focusing on reducing family accommodation. Parents were asked to bring video tapes of critical situations that were watched together. They were coached to reduce family accommodation for OCD, while enhancing praise and reward for adequate behaviors of the child. CY-BOCS scores at the beginning and after 3 months show an impressive decline in OCD severity that remained stable after 6 months. At 3 months follow-up, all children were able to attend Kindergarten daily, and at 6 months follow-up, every child was admitted to the next level / class.

Conclusions

Disseminating knowledge about the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment of early OCD may shorten the long delay between first OCD symptoms and disease-specific treatment that is reported as main predictor for persistent OCD.

Peer Review reports

Paediatric obsessive compulsive disorder [ 1 ] is a chronic condition with lifetime prevalence estimates ranging from 0.25 [ 2 ] to 2–3% [ 3 ]. OCD is often associated with severe disruptions of family functioning [ 4 ] and impairment of peer relationships as well as academic performance [ 5 ]. Mean age of onset of early onset OCD is 10.3 years, with a range from 7.5 to 12.5 years [ 6 ] or at an average of 11 years [ 7 ]. However, OCD can manifest itself also at a very early age - in a sample of 58 children, mean age of onset was 4.95 years [ 8 ], and in a study from Turkey, OCD is described in children as young as two and a half years [ 9 ]. According to different epidemiological surveys the prevalence of subclinical OC syndromes was estimated between 7 and 25%, and already very common at the age of 11 years [ 10 ].

Understanding the phenomenology of OCD in young children is important because both an earlier age of onset and a longer duration of illness have been associated with increased persistence of OCD [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. One of the main predictors for persistent OCD is duration of illness at assessment, which underlines that early recognition and treatment of the disorder are crucial to prevent chronicity [ 10 , 14 , 15 ]. OCD in very young children can be so severe that it has to be treated in an inpatient-clinic [ 16 ]. This might be prevented if the disorder were diagnosed and treated earlier.

In order to disseminate knowledge about early childhood OCD, detailed descriptions of its phenomenology are necessary to enable clinicians to recognize and assess the disorder in time. Yet, studies on this young population are scarce and differ in the definition of what is described as ‘very young’. For example, 292 treatment seeking youth with OCD were divided into a younger group (3–9 years old) and an older group (10–18 years old) [ 17 ]. While overall OCD severity did not differ between groups, younger children exhibited poorer insight, increased incidence of hoarding compulsions, and higher rates of separation anxiety and social fears than older youth. It is not clear how many very young children (between 3 and 5 years old) were included in this study. Skriner et al. [ 18 ] investigated characteristics of 127 young children (from 5 to 8) enrolled in a pilot sample of the POTS Jr. Study. These young children revealed moderate to severe OCD symptoms, high levels of impairment and significant comorbidity, providing further evidence that symptom severity in young children with OCD is similar to that observed in older samples. To our knowledge, the only European studies describing OCD in very young children on a detailed, phenotypic level are a single-case study of a 4 year old girl [ 16 ] and a report from Turkey on 25 children under 6 years with OCD [ 9 ]. Subjects were fifteen boys and ten girls between 2 and 5 years old. Mean age of onset of OCD symptoms was 3 years, with some OCD symptoms appearing as early as 18 months of age. All subjects had at least one comorbid disorder; the most frequent comorbidity was an anxiety disorder, and boys exhibited more comorbid diagnoses than girls. In 68% of the subjects, at least one parent received a lifetime OCD diagnosis. The study reports no further information on follow-up or treatment of these young patients.

In comparison to other mental disorders, duration of untreated illness in obsessive compulsive disorder is one of the longest [ 19 ]. One reason may be that obsessive-compulsive symptoms in young children are mistaken as a normal developmental phase [ 20 ]. Parents as well as professionals not experienced with OCD may tend to ‘watch and wait’ instead of asking for referral to a specialist, thus contributing to the long delay between symptom onset and assessment / treatment [ 10 ]. This might ameliorate if health professionals become more familiar with the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment of the disorder in the very young. The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed description of the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment of OCD in five very young children.

We describe a prospective 6 month follow-up of five cases of OCD in very young children (between 4 and 5 years old) who were referred to the OCD Outpatient Treatment Unit of a Psychiatric University Hospital. Three patients were directly referred by their parents, one by the paediatrician and one by another specialist. Parents and child were offered a first session within 1 week of referral. An experienced clinician (V.B.) globally assessed comorbidity, intelligence and functioning, and a CY-BOCS was administered with the parents.

Instruments

To assess OCD severity in youth, the Children Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale CY-BOCS [ 21 ] is regarded as the gold standard, with excellent inter-rater and test-retest reliability as well as construct validity [ 21 , 22 ]. The CY-BOCS has been validated in very young children by obtaining information from the parent. As in the clinical interview Y-BOCS for adults, severity of obsessions and compulsions are assessed separately. If both obsessions and compulsions are reported, a score of 16 is regarded as the cut-off for clinically meaningful OCD. If only compulsions are reported, Lewin et al. [ 23 ] suggest a cut-off score of 8. In their CY-BOCS classification, a score between 5 and 13 corresponds to mild symptoms / little functional impairment or a Clinical Global Impression Severity (CGI-S) of 2. A score between 14 and 24 corresponds to moderate symptoms / functioning with effort or a CGI-S of 3. Generally, it is recommended to obtain information from both child and parents. However, in case of the very young patients presented here, CY-BOCS scores were exclusively obtained from the parents. The parents of all five children reported not being familiar with any obsessions their child might have. In accordance with previous recommendations [ 23 ], a cut-off point of 8 for clinically meaningful OCD was used.

Patient vignettes

Patient 1 is a 4 year old girl, a single child living with both parents. She had never been separated an entire day from her mother. At the nursery, she suffered from separation anxiety for months. Parents reported that the girl had insisted on rituals already at the age of two. In the evening, she ‚had‘ to take her toys into bed and had got up several times crying because she ‚had to‘ pick up more toys. In the morning, only she ‚had the right‘ to open the apartment door. When dressing in the morning, she ‚had‘ to be ready before the parents. Only she was allowed to flush the toilet, even if it concerned toilet use of the parents. Moreover, only she ‘had the right’ to switch on the light, and this had to be with ten fingers at the same time. If she did not succeed, she got extremely upset and pressed the light button again and again until she was satisfied. The girl was not able to throw away garbage and kept packaging waste in a separate box. In the evening, she had to tidy her room for a long time until everything was ‚right‘. Whenever her routine was changed, she protested by crying, shouting and yelling at her parents. Moreover, she insisted on repeating routines if there had been a ‚mistake‘. In order to avoid conflict, both parents adapted their behavior to their daughter’s desires. In the first assessment with the parents, her score on the CY-BOCS was 15, implying clinically meaningful OCD. Psychiatric family history revealed that the mother had suffered from severe separation anxiety as a child and the father from severe night mares. Both parents described themselves as healthy adults.

Patient 2 is a four and a half year old boy, the younger of two brothers. He was reported to have been very oppositional since the age of two. Since the age of three, he insisted on a specific ritual when flushing the toilet – he had to pronounce several distinct sentences and then to run away quickly. Some months later he developed a complicated fare-well ritual and insisted on every family member using exactly the sentences he wanted to hear. If one of these words changed, he started to shout and threw himself on the floor. After a short time, he insisted on unknown people like the cashier at the supermarket to use the same words when saying good-bye.Moreover, he insisted that objects and meals had to be put back to the same place as before in case they had been moved. When walking outside, he had to count his steps and had to start this over and over again. In the morning, he determined where his mother had to stand and how her face had to look when saying good-bye. In order to avoid conflict, parents and brother had deeply accommodated their behavior to his whims. On the CY-BOCS, patient 2 reached a score of 15, which is equivalent to clinically meaningful OCD. Neither his father nor his mother reported any psychiatric disorder in past or present.

Patient 3 is a 4 year old boy referred because of possible OCD. Since the age of three, he had insisted on things going his way. When this was not the case, he threw a temper tantrum and demanded that time should be turned back. If, for example, he had cut a piece of bread from the loaf and was not satisfied with its form, he insisted that the piece should be ‘glued’ to the loaf again. Since he entered Kindergarten at the age of four, his behavior became more severe. If he was not satisfied with a certain routine like, for example, dressing in the morning, he demanded that the entire family had to undress and go to bed again, that objects had to lie at the same place as before or that the clock had to be turned back. In order to avoid conflict, the parents had repeatedly consented to his wishes. His behavior was judged as problematic at Kindergarten, because he demanded certain situations to be repeated or ‚played back‘. When the teacher refused to do that, the boy once run away furiously. On the CY-BOCS, patient 3 reached a score of 15. The mother described herself as being rather anxious (but not in treatment), the father himself as not suffering from any psychiatric symptoms. However, his mother had suffered from such severe OCD when he was a child that she had undergone inpatient treatment several times. This was also the reason why the parents had asked for referral to a specialist for the symptoms of their son.

Patient 4 is a 5 year old girl, the eldest of three siblings. Since the age of two, she was only able to wear certain clothes. For months, she refused to wear any shoes besides Espadrilles; she was unable to wear jeans and could only wear one certain pair of leggings. Wearing warm or thicker garments was extremely difficult, leading to numerous conflicts with her mother in winter. Socks had to have the same height, stockings had to be thin, and slips slack. When dressing in the morning, she regularly got angry and despaired and engaged in severe conflicts with her mother; dressing took a long time, whereas she had to be in Kindergarten on time. Her compulsions with clothes seemed to influence her social behavior as well; she had been watching other children at the playground for 40 min and did not participate because her winter coat did not ‚feel right‘. She started to join peers only when she was allowed to pull the coat off. She also had to dry herself excessively after peeing and was reported to be perfectionist in drawing, cleaning or tidying. Her CY-BOCS score was 15, equivalent to clinically meaningful OCD. Both parents described themselves as not suffering from any psychiatric problem in past or present. However, the grandmother on the mother’s side was reported to have had similar compulsions when she was a child.

Patient 5 was a four and a half year old girl referred because of early OCD. She had one elder brother and lived with both parents. At the age of 1 year, patient 5 was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor (astrocytoma). The tumor had been removed for 90% by surgery; the remaining tumor was treated with chemotherapy. The first chemotherapy at the age of 3 years was reasonably well tolerated. Shortly thereafter, the girl developed just-right-compulsions concerning her shoes. When the second chemotherapy (with a different drug) was started at the age of four, compulsions increased so dramatically that she was referred to our outpatient clinic by the treating oncologist. She insisted on her shoes being closed very tightly, her socks and underwear being put on according to a certain ritual, and her belt being closed so tightly that her father had to punch an additional hole. She refused to wear slack or new clothes and was not able to leave the toilet after peeing because ‘something might still come’; she used large amounts of toilet paper and complained that she wasn’t dry yet. She also insisted on straightening the blanket of her bed many times. She was described by her mother as extremely stressed, impatient and irritable; she woke up every night and insisted to go to the toilet, from where she would come back only after intense cleaning rituals. In the morning, she frequently threw a severe temper tantrum, including hitting and scratching the mother, staying naked in the bathroom and refusing to get dressed because clothes were not fitting ‚just right‘or were not tight enough. Shortly after the start of the second chemotherapy, the girl had entered Kindergarten which was in a different language than the family language. Moreover, her mother had just taken up a new job and had to make a trip of several days during the first month. Although the mother gave up her job after the dramatic increase in OCD severity, the girl’s symptoms did not change. As an association between chemotherapy and the increase in OCD symptoms could not be excluded, the treating oncologist decided to stop chemotherapy 2 weeks after patient 5 was presented with OCD at our department. At the moment of presentation, she arrived at Kindergarten too late daily, after long scenes of crying and shouting, or refused to go altogether. She reached a score of 20 on the CY-BOCS, the highest score of the five children presented here. Her father described himself as free of any psychiatric symptoms in past or present. Her mother had been extremely socially anxious as a child.

None of the siblings of the children described above was reported to show any psychiatric symptoms in past or present (Table  1 ).

The five cases described above show a broad range of OCD symptomatology in young children. Besides Just-Right compulsions concerning clothes, compulsive behavior on the toilet was reported such as having to pee frequently, having to dry oneself over and over again as well as rituals concerning flushing. Other symptoms were pronouncing certain words or phrases compulsively, insisting on a ‘perfect’ action and claiming that time or situations must be played back like a video or DVD if the action or situation were not ‘perfect enough’. The patients described here have in common that parents were already much involved in the process of family accommodation. For example, the parents of patient 3 had consented several times to undress and go to bed again in order to ‘play back’ certain situations; they had also consented turning back the clock in the house. The parents of patient 2 had accommodated his complicated fare-well ritual, thus having to rush to work in the morning themselves. However, all parents were smart enough not just to indulge their child’s behavior, but to seek professional advice.

Treatment recommendations

Practice Parameters and guidelines for the assessment and treatment of OCD in older children and adolescents recommend cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) as first line treatment for mild to moderate cases, and medication in addition to CBT for moderate to severe OCD [ 24 , 25 ]. However, there is a lack of treatment studies including young children with OCD [ 26 ]. A case series with seven children between the age of 3 and 8 years diagnosed with OCD describes an intervention adapted to this young age group. Treatment emphasized reducing family accommodation and anxiety-enhancing parenting behaviors while enhancing problem solving skills of the parents [ 27 ]. A much larger randomized clinical trial for 127 young children (5 to 8 years of age) with OCD showed family-based CBT superior to a relaxation protocol for this age group [ 14 ]. Despite these advances in treatment for early childhood OCD, availability of CBT for paediatric OCD in the community is scarce due to workforce limitations and regional limitations in paediatric OCD expertise [ 28 ]. This is certainly not only true for the US, but for most European countries as well.

When discussing treatment of OCD in young children, the topic of family accommodation is of utmost importance. Family accommodation, also referred to as a ‘hallmark of early childhood OCD’ [ 15 ] means that parents of children with OCD tend to accommodate and even participate in rituals of the affected child. In order to avoid temper tantrums and aggressive behavior of the child, parents often adapt daily routines by engaging in child rituals or facilitating OCD by allowing extra time, purchasing special products or adapting family rules and organisation to OCD [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Although driven by empathy for and compassion with the child, family accommodation is reported to be detrimental because it further reinforces OCD symptoms and avoidance behavior, thus enhancing stress and anxiety [ 4 , 32 ].

Parent-oriented CBT intervention

At the moment of first presentation, the five children were so severely impaired by their OCD that attendance of (compulsory) Kindergarten was uncertain. All parents reported being utterly worried and stressed by their child’s symptoms and the associated conflicts in the family. However, no single family wanted an in-patient treatment of their child, and because of the children’s young age, medication was not indicated. Some families lived far away from our clinic and / or had to take care of young siblings.

Therefore, a CBT-intervention was offered to the parents, mainly focusing on reducing family accommodation. This approach is in line with current treatment recommendations to aggressively target family accommodation in children with OCD [ 15 ]. Parents and child were seen together in a first session. The following sessions were done with the parents only, who were encouraged to bring video tapes of critical situations. The scenes were watched together and parents were coached to reduce family accommodation for OCD, while enhancing praise and reward for adequate behaviors of the child. Parents were also encouraged to use ignoring and time-out for problematic behaviors. As some families lived far away and had to take care of young siblings as well, telephone sessions were offered as an alternative whenever parents felt the need for it. Moreover, parents were prompted to facilitate developmental tasks of their child such as attending Kindergarten regularly, or building friendships with peers. The minimal number of treatment sessions was four and the maximal number ten, with a median of six sessions.

Three of the five children (patients 3, 4 and 5) were raised in a different language at home than the one spoken at Kindergarten. This can be interpreted as an additional stressor for the child, possibly enhancing OCD symptoms. Instead of expecting their child to learn the foreign language mainly by ‚trial and error‘, parents were encouraged to speak this language at home themselves, to praise their child for progress in language skills and to facilitate playdates with children native in the foreign language.

Three and six months after intake, assessment of OCD-severity by means of the CY-BOCS was repeated. Table  2 shows an impressive decline in OCD-severity after 3 months that remained stable after 6 months. At 3 months follow-up, all children were able to attend Kindergarten daily, and at 6 months follow-up, every child was admitted to the next level of Kindergarten or, in the case of patient 4, to school.

We report on five children of 4 and 5 years with very early onset OCD who were presented at a University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. These children are ‚early starters‘with regard to OCD. As underlined in a recent consensus statement [ 10 ], delayed initiation of treatment is seen as an important aspect of the overall burden of OCD (see also [ 19 ]). In our small sample, a CBT-based parent-oriented intervention targeting mainly family accommodation led to a significant decline in CY-BOCS scores after 3 months that was maintained at 6 months. At 3 months, all children were able to attend Kindergarten daily, and at 6 months, every child was admitted to the next grade. This can be seen as an encouraging result, as it allowed the children to continue their developmental milestones without disruptions, like staying at home for a long period or following an inpatient treatment that would have demanded high expenses and probably led to separation problems at this young age. Moreover, the reduction on CY-BOCS scores was reached without medication. The number of sessions of the CBT-based intervention with the parents varied between four and ten sessions, depending on the need of the family. Families stayed in touch with the therapist during the 6 month period and knew they could get an appointment quickly when needed.

A possible objection to these results might be the question of differential diagnosis. Couldn’t the problematic behaviors described merely be classified as benign childhood rituals that would change automatically with time? As described in the patient vignettes, the five children were so severely impaired by their OCD that attendance of Kindergarten – a developmental milestone – was uncertain. Moreover, parents were extremely worried and stressed by their child’s symptoms and associated family conflicts. In our view, it would have been a professional mistake to judge these symptoms as benign rituals not worthy of diagnosis or disorder-specific treatment. One possible, but rare and debated cause of OCD are streptococcal infections, often referred to as PANS [ 33 ]. However, in none of the cases parents reported an abrupt and sudden onset of OCD symptoms after an infection. Instead, symptoms seem to have developed gradually over a period of several months or even years. In the case of patient 5 with the astrocytoma, first just-right compulsions appeared at the age of three (after the first chemotherapy), and were followed by more severe compulsions at the age of four, when – within a period of 6 weeks – a new chemotherapy was started, the mother took up a new job and the patient entered Kindergarten. Diagnosing the severe compulsions of patient 5 as, for example, adjustment disorder due to her medical condition would not have delivered a disorder-specific treatment encouraging parents to reduce their accommodation. This might have led to even more family accommodation and to more severe OCD symptoms in the young girl. Last but not least, a possible objection might be that the behaviors described were stereotypies. However, stereotypies are defined as repetitive or ritualistic movements, postures or utterances and are often associated with an autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability. The careful intake with the children revealed no indication for any of these disorders.

Data reported here have several limitations. The children did not undergo intelligence testing; their reactions and behavior during the first session, as well as their acceptance and graduation at Kindergarten were assumed as sufficient to judge them as average intelligent. Comorbidities were assessed according to clinical impression and parents’ reports. The CBT treatment was based on our clinical expertise as a specialized OCD outpatient clinic. It included parent-oriented CBT elements, but did not have a fixed protocol and was adjusted individually to the needs of every family. Last but not least, no control group of young patients without an intervention was included.

Conclusions and clinical implications

We described a prospective 6 month follow-up of five cases of OCD in very young children. At the moment of first presentation, all children were so severely impaired that attendance of Kindergarten was uncertain. Parents were deeply involved in accommodating their child’s rituals. Because of the children’s young age, medication was not indicated. Therefore, a minimal CBT intervention for parents was offered, mainly focusing on reducing family accommodation. CY-BOCS scores at the beginning and after 3 months show an impressive decline in OCD severity that remained stable after 6 months. At 3 months follow-up, all children were able to attend Kindergarten daily, and at 6 months follow-up, every child had been admitted to the next grade. OCD is known to be a chronic condition. Therefore, in spite of treatment success, relapse might occur. However, as our treatment approach mainly targeted family accommodation, parents will hopefully react with less accommodation, should a new episode of OCD occur. Moreover, parents stay in touch with the outpatient clinic and can call when needed.

The clinical implications of our findings are that clinicians should not hesitate to think of OCD in a young child when obsessive-compulsive symptoms are reported. The assessment of the disorder should include the CY-BOCS, which has been validated in very young children by obtaining information from the parent. If CY-BOCS scores are clinically meaningful (for young children, a score above 8), a parent-based treatment targeting family accommodation should be offered.

By disseminating knowledge about the clinical presentation, assessment and treatment of early childhood OCD, it should be possible to shorten the long delay between first symptoms of OCD and disease-specific treatment that is reported as main predictor for persistent OCD. Early recognition and treatment of OCD are crucial to prevent chronicity [ 14 , 15 ]. As children and adolescents with OCD have a heightened risk for clinically significant psychiatric and psychosocial problems as adults, intervening early offers an important opportunity to prevent the development of long-standing problem behaviors [ 10 , 19 ].

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

Abbreviations

Obsessive compulsive behavior

Child Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

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V.B. conducted the diagnostic and therapeutic sessions and wrote the manuscript. V.M. was responsible for medical supervision and revised the manuscript. S.W. supervised the OCD treatment and research overall, applied for ethics approval and revised the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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V.B. and V.M. declare that they have no competing interests. S.W. has received royalties from Thieme, Hogrefe, Kohlhammer, Springer, Beltz in the last 5 years. Her work was supported in the last 5 years by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), diff. EU FP7s, HSM Hochspezialisierte Medizin of the Kanton Zurich, Switzerland, Bfarm Germany, ZInEP, Hartmann Müller Stiftung, Olga Mayenfisch, Gertrud Thalmann, Vontobel-, Unisciencia and Erika Schwarz Fonds. Outside professional activities and interests are declared under the link of the University of Zurich www.uzh.ch/prof/ssl-dir/interessenbindungen/client/web/

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Brezinka, V., Mailänder, V. & Walitza, S. Obsessive compulsive disorder in very young children – a case series from a specialized outpatient clinic. BMC Psychiatry 20 , 366 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02780-0

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A case of obsessive-compulsive disorder triggered by the pandemic.

1. Introduction

2. case presentation, 3. discussion, 4. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest, abbreviations.

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Share and Cite

Costa, A.; Jesus, S.; Simões, L.; Almeida, M.; Alcafache, J. A Case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Triggered by the Pandemic. Psych 2021 , 3 , 890-896. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych3040055

Costa A, Jesus S, Simões L, Almeida M, Alcafache J. A Case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Triggered by the Pandemic. Psych . 2021; 3(4):890-896. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych3040055

Costa, Ana, Sabrina Jesus, Luís Simões, Mónica Almeida, and João Alcafache. 2021. "A Case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Triggered by the Pandemic" Psych 3, no. 4: 890-896. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych3040055

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A True Story of Living With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

An authentic and personal perspective of the internal battles within the mind..

Posted April 3, 2017

• What Is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
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Contributed by Tiffany Dawn Hasse in collaboration with Kristen Fuller, M.D.

The underlying reasons why I have to repeatedly re-zip things, blink a certain way, count to an odd number, check behind my shower curtain to ensure no one is hiding to plot my abduction, make sure that computer cords are not rat tails, etc., will never be clear to me. Is it the result of a poor reaction to the anesthesiology that was administered during my wisdom teeth extraction? These aggravating thoughts and compulsions began immediately after the procedure. Or is it related to PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal infection) which is a proposed theory connoting a strange relationship between group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal infection with rapidly developing symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the basal ganglia? Is it simply a hereditary byproduct of my genetic makeup associated with my nervous personality ? Or is it a defense tactic I developed through having an overly concerned mother?

The consequences associated with my OCD

Growing up with mild, in fact dormant, obsessive-compulsive disorder, I would have never proposed such bizarre questions until 2002, when an exacerbated overnight onset of severe OCD mentally paralyzed me. I'd just had my wisdom teeth removed and was immediately bombarded with incessant and intrusive unwanted thoughts, ranging from a fear of being gay to questioning if I was truly seeing the sky as blue. I'm sure similar thoughts had passed through my mind before; however, they must have been filtered out of my conscious, as I never had such incapacitating ideas enter my train of thought before. During the summer of 2002, not one thought was left unfiltered from my conscious. Thoughts that didn't even matter and held no significance were debilitating; they prevented me from accomplishing the simplest, most mundane tasks. Tying my shoe only to untie it repetitively, continuously being tardy for work and school, spending long hours in a bathroom engaging in compulsive rituals such as tapping inanimate objects endlessly with no resolution, and finally medically withdrawing from college, eventually to drop out completely not once but twice, were just a few of the consequences I endured.

Seeking help

After seeing a medical specialist for OCD, I had tried a mixed cocktail of medications over a 10-year span, including escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), risperidone (Risperdal), aripiprazole (Abilify), sertraline (Zoloft), clomipramine (Anafranil), lamotrigine (Lamictal), and finally, after a recent bipolar disorder II diagnosis, lurasidone (Latuda). The only medication that has remotely curbed my intrusive thoughts and repetitive compulsions is lurasidone, giving me approximately 60 to 70 percent relief from my symptoms.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists would argue that a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and pharmacological management might be the only successful treatment approach for an individual plagued with OCD. If an individual is brave enough to undergo exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), a type of CBT that has been shown to relieve symptoms of OCD and anxiety through desensitization and habituation, then my hat is off to them; however, I may have an alternative perspective. It's not a perspective that has been researched or proven in clinical trials — just a coping mechanism I have learned through years of suffering and endless hours of therapy that has allowed me to see light at the end of the tunnel.

In my experience with cognitive behavioral therapy, it may be semi-helpful by deconstructing or cognitively restructuring the importance of obsessive thoughts in a hierarchical order; however, I still encounter many problems with this type of technique, especially because each and every OCD thought that gets stuck in my mind, big or small, tends to hold great importance. Thoughts associated with becoming pregnant , seeing my family suffer, or living with rats are deeply rooted within me, and simply deconstructing them to meaningless underlying triggers was not a successful approach for me.

In the majority of cases of severe OCD, I believe pharmacological management is a must. A neurological malfunction of transitioning from gear to gear, or fight-or-flight, is surely out of whack and often falsely fired, and therefore, medication works to help balance this misfiring of certain neurotransmitters.

Exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP) is an aggressive and abrasive approach that did not work for me, although it may be helpful for militant-minded souls that seek direct structure. When I was enrolled in the OCD treatment program at UCLA, I had an intense fear of gaining weight, to the point that I thought my body could morph into something unsightly. I remember being encouraged to literally pour chocolate on my thighs when the repetitive fear occurred that chocolate, if touching my skin, could seep through the epidermal layers, and thus make my thighs bigger. While I boldly mustered up the courage to go through with this ERP technique recommended by my specialist, the intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors associated with my OCD still and often abstain these techniques. Yes, the idea of initially provoking my anxiety in the hope of habituating and desensitizing its triggers sounds great in theory, and even in a technical scientific sense; but as a human with real emotions and feelings, I find this therapy aggressive and infringing upon my comfort level.

How I conquered my OCD

So, what does a person incapacitated with OCD do? If, as a person with severe OCD, I truly had an answer, I would probably leave my house more often, take a risk once in a while, and live freely without fearing the mundane nuances associated with public places. It's been my experience with OCD to take everything one second at a time and remain grateful for those good seconds. If I were to take OCD one day at a time, well, too many millions of internal battles would be lost in this 24-hour period. I have learned to live with my OCD through writing and performing as a spoken word artist. I have taken the time to explore my pain and transmute it into an art form which has allowed me to explore the topic of pain as an interesting and beneficial subject matter. I am the last person to attempt to tell any individuals with OCD what the best therapy approach is for them, but I will encourage each and every individual to explore their own pain, and believe that manageability can come in many forms, from classic techniques to intricate art forms, in order for healing to begin.

Tiffany Dawn Hasse is a performance poet, a TED talk speaker , and an individual successfully living with OCD who strives to share about her disorder through her art of written and spoken word.

Kristen Fuller M.D. is a clinical writer for Center For Discovery.

Facebook image: pathdoc/Shutterstock

Kristen Fuller, M.D., is a physician and a clinical mental health writer for Center For Discovery.

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Case Study: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

In a previous article we reviewed a range of treatments that are used to help clients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In this edition we showcase the case study of Darcy [fictional name], who worked with a psychologist to address the symptoms and history of her OCD.

Marian, a psychologist who specialised in anxiety disorders, closed the file and put it into the filing cabinet with a smile on her face. This time she had the satisfaction of filing it into the “Work Completed” files, for she had just today celebrated the final session with a very long-term client: Darcy Dawson. They’d come through a lot together, Darcy and Marian, during the twelve years of Darcy’s treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and they had had a particularly strong therapeutic alliance.

Marian reflected on the symptoms and history which had brought Darcy into her practice.

Obsessions at age nine

Now 37, Darcy reckoned that she had begun having obsessions around age nine, soon after her beloved grandma had died. Already grieving the loss of the person she was closest to in life, Darcy experienced further alienation – and resultant anxiety — when her father relocated the family from the small town in Victoria where they lived to Melbourne. Adjusting to big-city life wasn’t easy for someone as anxious as Darcy, and she soon found that she was obsessing. She had fears of being hit by a speeding car if she stepped off the kerb. She feared that the new friends she began to develop in Melbourne would be kidnapped by bad people. And she was terrified that, if she didn’t do an elaborate prayer routine at night, all manner of terrible things would befall her family.

The prayer routine, relatively simple at first, grew to gigantic proportions, containing many rules and restrictions. Darcy believed that she had to repeat each family member’s full name 15 times, say a sentence that asked for each person to be kept safe, promise God that she would improve herself, clap her hands 20 times for each person, kneel down and get up 5 times, and then put her hands into a prayer position while bowing. She “had” to do this routine at least 10 times each night, and if she made a mistake anywhere along the way, she had to start totally over again from the beginning, or else something bad would happen to her parents or little brother. Once she went flying to her mother’s side in the kitchen, tears streaming down her face, because she couldn’t get her “prayers” right. Darcy was certain that she was a huge disappointment to God and everybody.

Just like Granddad

Marian had asked Darcy if her parents were similar at all, and Darcy couldn’t think of many ways in which they were. Then she remembered something. “Ah,” she said, “my parents aren’t having these awful thoughts like me, but I remember my mum often telling me, ‘You’re just like your grandfather.’” Darcy’s grandfather had died when she was only five, so she didn’t have strong recollections of him, but there were two images that she always remembered about him: Grandfather standing by the kitchen sink in their farmhouse, washing his hands – always washing his hands. And if they decided to take a walk around the farm, he would take a seeming eternity to check that all the windows and doors were locked, even though they were on good terms with everyone within a ten-mile radius!

Obsessions and compulsions worsen through Uni

Marian had felt huge compassion for Darcy as she outlined the course that the disorder had taken. While the intrusive thoughts waxed during high-stress times and waned when Darcy felt relatively stable, there was nevertheless a general broadening of the obsessions – and resultant compulsion to do certain repetitive acts – throughout Darcy’s growing-up years. In high school, for instance, Darcy began to have an aversion to looking at any woman with a scoop-neck top on, going so far as to grab a glass and pretend to be holding it high up near her lips (as if to drink) if she had to talk to someone dressed in any but the most conservative top. In that way, she felt, she would be blocked from seeing what she should not see and thus sinning. Short skirts were also a problem, as Darcy feared that she was looking at people in inappropriate ways, and was offensive.

If anyone at a party crossed their legs while she was looking at them, Darcy assumed that they had done that because they were offended by her having glanced at them; she feared that they would think she was looking at their crotch area. She prayed constantly for forgiveness, but ended up ceasing hugs to family and friends because she felt like a hypocrite. Of course, not feeling that she could/should touch anyone made for huge social problems, and dating anyone became impossible: a huge punishment for a friendly extravert like Darcy. She petitioned God relentlessly, asking to be a better, less sinful person. It did not seem to help.

When Darcy began University, the experience was defined by a series of irrational obsessions. She would worry incessantly about having written something offensive on an email or an assignment. Walking around campus, she would pick up rubbish: papers that she had never seen before; she would worry that she might have written something on one of them. She feared that she would accidentally hurt one of her fellow students by something that she might do or say. By this time Darcy was repeating certain phrases over and over again to ward off disaster. She was amazed that she was getting through school at all (she often made straight A’s), because her rampant perfectionism caused her to take at least twice as long as other students to complete assignments, and she still wasn’t happy then. The anxiety and depression were overwhelming Darcy to the point where she recognised that she could barely function and something needed to change.

The Uni psychologist says, “You’re fine”

Marian shook her head in amazement as she recalled how Darcy’s first attempts to find out what was wrong with her had been fruitless; all the health professionals had completely missed the OCD! Upon first coming to Marian, Darcy had recounted how getting along to the University psychologist in her senior year was a “non-event”. He had asked a few questions, chatted to her about her schoolwork, told her she was basically fine, and then told her to go see a psychiatrist, who merely prescribed a sleeping pill. Darcy had taken this, as instructed, because the intrusive thoughts in her mind often did keep her from sleeping, but when she was awake she still had the thoughts and the horrible compulsion to perform the anxiety-alleviating acts: routines which now occupied several hours each day. Moreover, Darcy’s parents still didn’t believe that anything was wrong with her; they even found it funny that she was “quirky” like her grandfather.

Age 25: Treatment begins

Darcy was to graduate and spend another three years being held prisoner by her out-of-control mind before a chance meeting of her mother with a specialist in OCD at a conference. The specialist didn’t live in Melbourne, but – by incredible coincidence – he had a highly recommended colleague who did: Marian. Marian recalled with some fondness how Darcy had sat in her office during the first session, shedding tears of joy at being truly “seen”: both as a person and in her disorder. When Marian had issued the magical words, “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”, Darcy had been surprised – after all, her sense of OCD was people who continually washed their hands – but she also felt like she had just been given the key to her prison. Her treatment began soon after.

Marian worked intensively with Darcy at first, and then steadily. She helped Darcy get onto an even keel emotionally first by raising her serotonin levels (which had been quite low). Marian then began the laborious process of helping Darcy to change her habits of thinking: the assumptions that she made, the irrationalities that controlled her behaviour, and the intrusive obsessions that seemed to take over her life. Marian helped Darcy to see the importance of an exercise regimen, a good diet, and a stillness practice. Darcy joined an online support group, and Marian and Darcy enlisted the help of Darcy’s family and a few close friends. Partway through the therapy, Darcy was even able to come off the medications: a goal she had long sought, because she had married a “wonderful” man and they wanted to start a family.

At 37, Darcy is a happy and fulfilled person, with a solid marriage and an eight-year-old daughter. She believes that she worries about her “like a normal mother”, rather than in the obsessional way she used to pray in order to protect her family from imagined harm. She still petitions God, as she is active in her church, but now the petitions are free of the superstitious routines she used to perform, and she is quick to be thankful for her many blessings.

Unwanted thoughts still come to her, but now she has tools to focus elsewhere, and when the intrusive thoughts come, Darcy knows how to keep them from causing her to repeat irrational acts in a compulsive way. She knows that she will probably always be managing her disorder, as there is no cure for OCD. But the difference now is that she controls it, rather than having it control her. As far as Darcy is concerned, Marian gave her back her life.

Marian smiled again as she recalled Darcy’s journey and her original fear of being a “disappointment to God and everyone”. Indeed, Marian felt blessed to have had Darcy as a client.

This article is an extract of the upcoming Mental Health Academy “OCD and OCPD Case Studies” CPD course. Click here for a full list of currently available MHA continuing professional development courses.

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Obsessive-compulsive disorder: case study and discussion of treatment

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Psychological Medicine, Hospitals for Sick Children, London.
• PMID: 2114137
• PMCID: PMC1371281

A patient's own account of her obsessive-compulsive disorder is presented. She describes her distressing experiences, the impact of the disturbance on her and her family's life and her subsequent improvement using the technique of exposure and response prevention. The treatments available are discussed and the benefits of self-directed behavioural psychotherapy are reviewed. A comment from a general practitioner is appended.

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• Behav Res Ther. 1966 Nov;4(4):273-80 - PubMed
• Behav Res Ther. 1973 Nov;11(4):463-71 - PubMed
• Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Nov;153:650-8 - PubMed
• Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Apr;152:522-34 - PubMed
• Br J Psychiatry. 1987 May;150:593-7 - PubMed

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• v.40(334); May 1990

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: case study and discussion of treatment.

A patient's own account of her obsessive-compulsive disorder is presented. She describes her distressing experiences, the impact of the disturbance on her and her family's life and her subsequent improvement using the technique of exposure and response prevention. The treatments available are discussed and the benefits of self-directed behavioural psychotherapy are reviewed. A comment from a general practitioner is appended.

Full text is available as a scanned copy of the original print version. Get a printable copy (PDF file) of the complete article (789K), or click on a page image below to browse page by page. Links to PubMed are also available for Selected References .

Selected References

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• Kettl PA, Marks IM. Neurological factors in obsessive compulsive disorder. Two case reports and a review of the literature. Br J Psychiatry. 1986 Sep; 149 :315–319. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marks I, O'Sullivan G. Drugs and psychological treatments for agoraphobia/panic and obsessive-compulsive disorders: a review. Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Nov; 153 :650–658. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marks I. Behavioural psychotherapy in general psychiatry. Helping patients to help themselves. Br J Psychiatry. 1987 May; 150 :593–597. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Meyer V. Modification of expectations in cases with obsessional rituals. Behav Res Ther. 1966 Nov; 4 (4):273–280. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rachman S, Marks IM, Hodgson R. The treatment of obsessive-compulsive neurotics by modelling and flooding in vivo. Behav Res Ther. 1973 Nov; 11 (4):463–471. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marks IM, Lelliott P, Basoglu M, Noshirvani H, Monteiro W, Cohen D, Kasvikis Y. Clomipramine, self-exposure and therapist-aided exposure for obsessive-compulsive rituals. Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Apr; 152 :522–534. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]