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For most parents, soothing a child’s anxiety is just part of the job. But for a parent whose child has obsessive compulsive disorder, soothing anxiety and helping with behaviors linked to the disease could lead to more severe symptoms, University of Florida researchers say.
“It’s validating the OCD in the kid’s mind and that’s what you don’t want to do.”
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is diagnostically classified as an anxiety disorder due to its hallmark feature of intense periods of anxiety. The diagnostic criterion for OCD states that an individual needs to experience either obsessions or compulsions to have OCD (American Psychiatric Association). The inclusion of this “either or” in the definition of OCD allows for the existence of an individual suffering from only obsessions (i.e., “pure obsessional, or “pure O”). This subtype of OCD seems to contradict clinical observations made by many thought leaders in the field of OCD.
