ABSTRACT
Kevin is an 18-year-old man who lives with his mother and her partner. Kevin first came into contact with child mental health services in his early teens: he was diagnosed with acute anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (specifically, he had a compulsion towards hand-washing). A few years later, Kevin was admitted to the adolescent unit of a local psychiatric hospital with symptoms of OCD and hearing voices. He reported that he would wash his hands in response to voices telling him to do so. Kevin described a difficult childhood: he reported witnessing his father’s angry outbursts when he was very young, when objects would be thrown aggressively. When Kevin was four years old, his father left the family home and Kevin saw him only a few times subsequently. Kevin was raised for the most part by his mother and maternal grandmother: he described growing up as the only male in the house as difficult at times. In addition, Kevin reported some difficulties with reading and writing at school: he said that he was regularly bullied by other children at senior school between the ages of 11 and 15 years, after which he was moved to a special needs school. Finally, Kevin reported that his grandmother had become ill and later died during his last hospital admission; he described feeling very upset as they had been very close throughout his childhood.
