Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 29, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg april Page 18 Chuck features editor new treatment offers Hope for chronic sense of self distrust by Jane Brody new York times news service remember those childhood Days when you tried to walk without stepping on any cracks in the or the times you lined up your toys in a particular order and became furious if anyone disturbed them now imagine trying to live your entire life obeying far stronger imagine being like the Man who was chronically late for work because if he stepped on a he had to go Back Home and Start or the Driver who often became overcome by the thought that he might have hit someone and had to keep turning Back to find his imagined or the woman who washed for hours a Day when people came to her later scrubbed anything they had in each the strange repeated Behaviours were pursued in the belief that they would prevent some feared such As harm to the persons family or personal psychiatrists used to think such obsessive compulsive disorders were they were misled because out of shame and knowledge that their thoughts and behaviour were desperately tried to conceal their bizarre symptoms and rarely sought professional unresolved Many psychotherapists also thought obsessive compulsive or stemmed from unresolved childhood conflicts or emotional such As Overly rigid toilet despite traditional psychotherapy or patients rarely overcame in the last few years a dramatically different picture of this crippling disorder has bringing with it effective methods of treatment that thus far offer significant and in some cases Complete Relief to three fourths of those recent surveys of adults and youngsters conducted by the National Institute of mental health found that from 1 to per cent of the or up to five million Are making the problem More common than schizophrenia or in at least half of the symptoms began in Early nothing unusual has been found in the upbringing of those afflicted with old with one important exception close relatives of patients have a much higher than expected Chance of also having the disorder or some other related psycho neurological such As uncontrollable panic attacks or severe in people with certain brain such As have a greater than Normal Chance of also having using modern analytical techniques such As cat scans and magnetic resonance researchers found evidence of physical and biochemical aberrations in the brains of old biochemical the findings suggest that a missed biochemical probably Between the basal a major brain nerve and the frontal lobes where new information is leads to mounting irrational anxiety instead of rational Judith chief of child psychiatry at the National Institute of mental describes the problem As a kind of Hiccup in the brain that creates a chronic sense of patients cannot Trust their knowledge or Good judgment but rather must repeatedly Check and recheck and repeat Peculiar acts Over and Over again to be sure everything is Rapoport says the lives of old patients Are tyrannize by leading to senseless repetition and ritual As if some innate program of behaviour has run As symptoms lives can be severely making patients impossible to live with and unable to Rapoport is the author of the illuminating bestseller the boy who Stop recently released in paperback american in it she says the disease affects some of the most sensitive and talented people i have psychiatrists say people with old Are not deluded and do not suffer from they know that the doors Are locked and the Gas turned that they did not run Over that stepping on a crack will not cause some yet they must perform their compulsive acts to relieve repeated overwhelming attacks of others afflicted with the disorder do not behave peculiarly but Are chronically obsessed by irrational thoughts and fears that can cause crippling if not for this recent studies have old patients would be otherwise Able to function effectively at work and in social and while Many people with the disorder Are sometimes to the Point of contemplating their depression seems to be the not the of the problem since it typically disappears when their obsessive compulsive symptoms Are brought under in the Early swedish physicians discovered the drug Clomis praline could greatly relieve or reverse the symptoms of this an specifically affects cells in a certain part of the brain that take up a chemical messenger called the swedish finding was followed by a a kind of Hiccup in the brain leads to self distrust series of Well designed studies clearly demonstrating the ability of Clomis praline and several other anti serotonin drugs to relieve or reverse the symptoms of old in a majority of last december the Federal food and drug administration finally approved marketed As for the treatment of at the same behaviour therapists began to show that their techniques could also relieve in some permanently reverse the symptoms of exposed in one patients Are exposed to situations that provoke their compulsive behaviour but their responses Are someone obsessed with dirt May be forced to get her hands dirty and then not be allowed to Wash them for a prescribed period of in the amount of time spent washing May be increasingly restricted until it is reduced to seconds rather than minutes or patients in behaviour therapy must be highly motivated and agree to and stick with a treatment even though not indulging in their even for a few May make them painfully Rapoport and others urge patients to try behaviour therapy first and Only if that does not work to seek drug which May need to be continued in most a combination of behaviour and drug sometimes in concert with psychotherapy to help them Cope with anxiety or is most effective and most Likely to result in lasting minimized of the 75 per cent of patients who respond to in on third the symptoms disappear completely and in the remaining two thirds manifestations of the disorder Are greatly Given the dramatic response of Many patients to Rapoport and others Are testing it against other disorders associated with compulsive for Susan a colleague of reported last summer that compulsive sometimes pursued to the Point of Complete Bod wide can be stemmed by the in an Rapoport said very severe Nail biting May also be reversed by the but she said her most remarkable Success with Clomis praline has been in the treatment of such As Labrador retrievers and great that obsessively lick their paws she is now studying parrots that compulsively pull out their other researchers have noted that some patients with the compulsive Binge urge respond to treatment with prozac an antidepressant drug that also affects thus the response to drug treatment of other like the impulse disorders paedophilia and has been but inspired by the dramatic results with physicians Are continuing to search for drugs that can Stem the wide Range of socially and personally devastating compulsive children today stages signal growth by Charles Schwarzbeck Scripps Howard news service is a different kid these her Mother not the delightful child and fam ily member she used to i dont know whats so difficult for weve provided her with a life of love and i guess something happened at that made her this maybe its just being a were the same family at Home except her father and her sister and i Are More Apt to let her Hope Shell take her moodiness to her own Nancy changes Are mysterious for her her parents try to understand what has gone they move Back and Forth Between blaming themselves and blaming their who still is a Good now her family is giving her More mostly because they dont want to feel As her father put when i try to reach out to and get Back what we had i end up feeling like a Shell have to get through this confusion even though Nancy has brought discomfort and confusion to her nothing is Nancy is growing up she has moved into a new period one that will help her become More she will develop new relationships with her parents that will later allow healthier relationships with Nancy moodiness and withdrawal Are signals that and family changes Are magically coming together to produce an Advance in these painful As they May Are helping this teenager develop new and impressive she cannot control the Way she acts at her parents new wishing she would take her moodiness to her really indicate their Confidence that she can be More of an had they reacted this Way five years she would not have been old enough to be More Nancy is trying to organize her life so that she can learn How to be learn How to Deal with Strong feelings of anger and depression on her and construct a beginning men Tal picture of the adult woman she wants to where it not for her she would not push herself to sit with her thoughts and were it not for her new self As her father sees she would not struggle with trying to construct a grownup whose relationships with her parents Are More like friendships and less like grownups taking care of a were it not for her pric Liness her family would not Back to give her the room to do this important Nancy moodiness is one of the grow Ingup organizers that show themselves at critical times in childhood and throughout these organizers Are magical because they seem to be the first organizer shows itself within the first two or three months of it is signalled by the baby social before this smile parents love the baby by caring for after the they continue to care for the but the smile signals the beginning of give and play triggered this first organizer triggers it changes the they respond to the infants smiles with different expressions and a second organizer comes about when the infant is about eight months a combination of events helps the baby move from general discomfort to specific it is at this time that the secure infant shows concern or fear when approached by a this stranger fear at eight months can be unsettling for they May won Der what am i doing wrong when a beloved relative comes to see the they Arent doing anything this organizer lays the groundwork for under standing differences Between intimate relationships and it helps the infant balance his fears of losing Mother As he learns How to explore and it cements the most important people in the baby at a year and a the youngster begins to master this is the third while it is mysterious and unit develops the beginnings of the child uses no to practice being different from the being negative helps the child and the parents learn about another important piece of togetherness frustration and there Are six other organizers in childhood and they magically Combine biological emotional and parenting a to trigger movement to new growing up write to Charles fourth Winnipeg free 300 Carlton r3c he is unable to answer each question Scripp Showah news service ;