OCD Chicago

Committed to OCD Education and Support

OCD Chicago works to increase public and professional awareness of OCD, educate and support people with OCD and their families, and to encourage research into new treatments and a cure.

We are a small organization with a big heart. OCD Chicago is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people who suffer with OCD. A resource for individuals, families, mental health professionals, educators, clergy and the media, OCD Chicago is the only Chicago-area organization dedicated solely to OCD.

We changed our name in 2007 to OCD Chicago so consumers could find us more easily to access the information they need. OCD Chicago was founded in 1994 as the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. We are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, and an affiliate of the national Obsessive Compulsive Foundation in Boston, MA.

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With Appreciation

This web site is made possible in part by contributions from

William Blair & Company
and
Joan Richman’s Kids Fund.

Learn More

To learn more about OCD Chicago, you can download a copy of our brochure “Breaking the Silence”. Or, contact us to receive a copy in the mail.

About Us

Expert Perspectives

OCD and Tourette Syndrome: Re-examining the Relationship

At the outset of this article I would like to thank the hundreds of kids whom I have seen professionally in my more than twenty five years of clinical practice. They were as much my teachers as my patients, in that they opened my eyes to numerous insights, some of which are outlined here. Many were indulgent enough to describe their experience with OCD and related problems in such exquisite detail that they shaped my thinking--and re-thinking--of what I thought I knew about OCD, Tourette Syndrome (TS) and the multitude of clinical features that often presented within the same young packages. Some just had OCD in its familiar forms, and others just tics. But many had a hodge-podge of clinical features--OCD and TS and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and LD’s (learning disorders) and ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) and … you name it. I had innumerable opportunities to learn about their first-hand experiences so near to the genesis of their own disorders. As a result, a picture began to emerge that was consistent with their descriptions but often at odds with orthodox views. Here I will briefly outline several perspectives that derive from a re-examination of the relationship between OCD and TS based on that picture.