Aurora Gavino

Professor Aurora Gavino is one of the leading experts in our country in the psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a problem that she has been investigating since 1979. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Malaga, in Spain. She has been director of the Department of Psychology and Clinical Psychology at the University of Málaga. Since 2014, she has directed the Master of General Health Psychology at the University of Málaga.
Professor Gavino was president of the Spanish Society for the Advancement of Clinical and Health Psychology. As a specialist in that area, she has authored manuals for psychologists and students, scientific papers, research and popular books for the general public. Her works include the creation of practical content to therapists such as “Guía de ayuda al terapeuta cognitivo-conductual” (Guide for a cognitive-behavioral therapist), “Tratamientos psicológicos de trastornos clínicos” (Psychological treatments of clinical disorders).  She has contributed to the assessment of child obsessive-compulsive disorder by the validation of the Spanish version the The Yale-Brown Obsessive–Compulsive for children, Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire- Child version (OBQ-CV), and the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory -version Children (OIC-CV). Her books “Mi hijo tiene manias” ("My son has obsessions"), “Deje atrás sus obsesiones” ("Leave your obsessions") and “Tratando… Trastorno Obsesivo-Compulsivo” ("Treating ... Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder") are books of reference for parents and patients as well as clinicians. She is the director of the collections “Recursos Terapéuticos” and “Psicocuentos” of Pirámide Editions. She has received several awards in recognition of her career, including the 2015 Aitana Award.

Not too long ago it was thought that there not were children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, in recent years it has been shown that OCD can occur in children aged 4-5.
Recent research has focused on the development of appropriate assessment tools for children to detect this problem and evidence-based psychological treatments.
In Spain, there are several consolidated research groups working on this issue and have obtained relevant results to the advance of knowledge on the etiology, characteristics, evaluation and treatment of this disorder.
In this symposium, four research studies that have been carried out by four research groups devoted to the study of OCD on various aspects of child and adolescent will be presented: A longitudinal design of the epidemiology of child OCD; the role of the mother figure to reduce obsessive rituals in children with OCD; the diversity of the manifestation of OCD; the role of genetics and environment in the development of OCD; and the comparison of cognitive variables that discriminate between obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and separation anxiety disorder.