[Obsessive-compulsive disorders in childhood and adolescence--recent psychoanalytic views and treatment approaches]

Based on neurobiological and development-psychological findings psychodynamic concepts for understanding compulsive disorders are supplemented and extended. A stimulus barrier impaired during development which in the early mother-child system normally develops into an autonomous and self-regulating ability has the consequence in compulsive disorders that the ability of drawing limits between reality and phantasy has only poor success. Based on case examples the function of the situation triggering the compulsive symptoms and the foreseeable relationship quality are examined on the different levels of development. Then it becomes clear how complex the originating conditions for compulsive disorders are, and under which conditions a primary object fails as original external psycho-neurobiological regulator in the development of autonomous self-regulation.