[The puberty syndrome: the acute obsessive crisis]

For a rather long period of time the authors have seen and followed up the evolution of a very characteristic syndrome. It is not frequent and it appears only in puberty, in boys as well as in girls, and it has been called "acute obsessive crisis". It appears suddenly in the form of a very intense anguish with the constant repetition of questions about the possibility of being in mortal sin and with the evidence of poorness of thought. The acute period lasts about 72 hours and then remission begins spontaneously and in one week it is all over. The evolution of this syndrome showed that it is not repeated later and that it does not leave any defect. It is essential to make the differential diagnosis with schizophrenia. The author's hypothesis is that acute obsessive crisis is the extreme manifestation of the painful mental experiences associated to corporal changes so frequent during puberty.