OCD in children and teens

What is OCD?

Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterised by feeling inappropriate, repugnant and distressing intrusive thoughts, images, or impulses (obsessions) that occur against your will.  Obsessions can be thoughts, worries, pictures or feelings that we experience a lot of and that aren’t very nice and that we don’t want. Compulsions can then be actions or things we do to cope and manage these obsessive thoughts to try and make them go away. No one knows exactly what causes OCD, but whatever it is we know that OCD works by tricking us into thinking and feeling in certain ways.

When to seek treatment for OCD in children and teens

OCD can be a highly distressing condition, affecting a young person’s ability to engage in everyday activities such as school, work, and socialising. It can lead to feelings of isolation, shame and embarrassment, as young people may feel unable to control their thoughts and behaviours.
An obsession with dirt or germs.
Repeated doubts, such as whether or not the door is locked.
Preoccupation with order, symmetry, or exactness.
A great need to know or remember things that may be very minor.
Too much worrying about something bad occurring.
Aggressive thoughts, urges, or behaviours.

How does OCD affect children and young people?

A child with OCD has obsessive thoughts that are not wanted. They are linked to fears, such as touching dirty objects. He or she uses compulsive rituals to control the fears, such as excessive handwashing. As children grow, rituals and obsessive thoughts normally happen with a purpose and focus based on age. School-aged children often create group rituals as they learn to play games, take part in team sports, and recite rhymes. Older children and teens start to collect objects and have hobbies. These rituals help children to socialise and learn to deal with anxiety.

When a child has OCD, obsessive thoughts and compulsive rituals can become very frequent and strong. They may interfere with daily living and normal development. OCD is more common in teens.

What do Onebright offer?
Although we aren’t certain about the exact causes of OCD, what we do know is that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has been proven to be most effective in helping people take back control over it. At Onebright, you can work with an accredited CBT Therapist to help you work with your child's thoughts and behaviours. The main tool used to take back control over OCD is called ‘Exposure and Response Prevention’ or ‘ERP’ for short. This means learning and practising to gradually face OCD, by facing the fear that OCD makes us feel scared or worried about. When we begin to face the fear and OCD, we are then able to challenge and test the worries we have and learn from these experiences. ERP might seem like a very scary thing to do, but your therapist will help you and never make you do something you don’t feel ready to do. You can also learn some other ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ tools to use when OCD tries to trick you, and to help you gain back more control.
Benefits for child and family
Working with a therapist to face and overcome your child's difficulties can be a challenging and daunting prospect, but one that can also be extremely rewarding. By working with a therapist, you and/or your child or young person can be able to better understand the difficulties that they are experiencing, and also how to manage and work through them. Working alongside your therapist, you can learn the tools and approaches that work best for you to help you take back control and get back to a life that's worth living. Treatment will depend on your child’s symptoms, age, and general health. It will also depend on how severe the condition is. Early treatment can ease symptoms and enhance your child’s normal development. It can also improve his or her quality of life.
Get started by answering some simple questions below or call 020 8129 0558

Begin your journey

The Onebright client liaison team are available Monday to Friday between 9am-5pm (excluding bank holidays).
Your child must be aged 5-17 years to access our therapy services.
Your child’s assessment will cost £100 (this includes consultation and report).
After your assessment, if your child is recommended for therapy, this will cost £150 per appointment.

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