THE CLINICAL-FEATURES AND TYPOLOGY OF OBSESSION IN SLOW-PROGREDIENT ATTACK-LIKE SCHIZOPHRENIA DEBUTTING AT THE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT AGE

As many as 56 patients suffering from slow-progredient attack-like schizophrenia running its course with the predominance of obsessions in the clinical picture were examined and followed up for 3 to 5 years. At the moment of the examination the patients' age ranged from 8 to 15 years. It has been established that during slow-progredient attack-like schizophrenia in children and adolescents, obsessions occur in the structure of <<large>> obsessive syndromes characterized by polymorphism of psychopathological disorders and always including remarkable affective symptomatology. Six types of obsessive conditions were distinguished, each of which was marked by a definite stereotype of the disease natural history and correlated with the degree of the process progress. Among the types of obsessive conditions described, depressive ones with obsessions (three types) led on the whole to less pronounced alterations of the personality than obsessive-anxious ones, particularly anxious-hypochondriac attacks after the completion of which there formed relatively more profound personality changes.