Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Children and Their Parents

People who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are preoccupied with certain distressing thoughts and feel compelled to perform certain behaviors. The compulsive acts usually block out the anxiety caused by the obsession. The obsessions are bothering images, thoughts, or urges that invade into a persons stream of consciousness. Compulsions are the repetitive behaviors that a person feels compelled to perform. There are various themes of obsessions and compulsions the most common being contamination, order/symmetry, harm or injury, sex, violence, and religion

(Taylor et al., 2010)

Research states that learning through developmental relationships (parent-child) interactions, can account for the symptoms of OCD to emerge in adulthood. There are three parental authority styles, including permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian, that differ on the dimensions of nurture and behavioral control. Parents who use the permissive style allow their children to do what they want with little discipline whereas authoritative parenting, use reasonable guidelines while providing a nurturing environment. The authoritarian style, is parenting that values strict adherence to rules with low levels of nurturing. Results from researchers indicate that the authoritarian style of parenting was associated with both OC symptoms and OC beliefs (Timpano, 2010).

The current study's research is aiming at finding the origins of the dysfunctional cognition's that have been shown to be involved in both adult and children forms of OCD. This study addresses two method limitations, the comparison between maladaptive OCD-related beliefs in individuals with OCD and their family members. The sample consisted of children diagnosed with OCD, rather that unselected adolescents (Jacobi et al., 2006) or adults with OCD (Rector et al., 2009). Beliefs in the pediatric OCD sample was examined in relation to a group of first-degree relatives (mothers). The current study then applied measures of OCD-related beliefs to evaluate cognitions in children and their mothers. A child version of the adult, 44-item Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire allowed comparisons of dysfunctional beliefs in children and their parents (Coles and colleagues, 2009). With the research conducted by Jacobi et al. (2006) and Rector et al. (2009), they hypothesized the relationship between the mother and child's report of beliefs related to the threat and responsibility would be positively correlated. Based on the findings of Coles and colleagues (2009), they hypothesized that correlations between the mother and child's beliefs about the importance of and need to control thoughts would also be positive. The data presented are from the first study investigating the relationship between OCD-related beliefs in children with OCD and their biological parents (mothers).