Biography
Biography: Dalia Asfour
Abstract
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is more common in children and adolescents with a lifetime prevalence estimated at 2% to 3%. All kids have worries and doubts. But kids with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often can’t stop worrying, no matter how much they want to. Childhood OCD is often associated with severe disruption in social and academic functioning, comorbid emotional and behavioral problems. Children may keep their OCD a secret and be ashamed of, thus parents may be unaware of the presence or severity or OCD. The presenting symptoms of irritability, agitation, aggression, withdrawal, or decline in school functioning may mask the real obsessionals thoughts and fears to be mistaken for depression, other anxiety disorders, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorders. Although OCD presentation in children is quite similar in presentation to OCD in adults, developmental differences between children and adults arising from age, maturity, ability for abstract thinking, language development, and inability to delay gratification and handling anxiety. All these reasons may complicate the application of CBT for children. An important difference as well is that childhood OCD is considered a family illness, parents are an integral part of children lives, they commonly involve family members in their OCD through participation in rituals, provision of reassurance, and assistance in avoiding fear triggers. So therapy as well as illness must involve parents as active team members in the treatment plan. Despite these reasons, cognitive behavior therapy for children that is modulated to correspond to these differences is well established therapy for childhood OCD the following lecture will illustrate different methods in conducting basic cognitive behavioral therapy schema for OCD (cognitive errors, exposure, habituation, and anticipatory anxiety, as well as the ability to tolerate anxiety during Exposure and response prevention) in away the child with OCD is motivated by and compliant to.