Abstract:

The present article's purpose is to analyze the relation between psychological status (including: a) the presence of trait anxiety, especially, but also another "risk" traits, and b) behavioral and cognitive patterns) in families with children or teenagers who have fobic-anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders, which may contribute to deeper the children's or teenager's psychopatology. Concerning behavioral and cognitive patterns, we analysed different family models: (1) families with similar vs. complementary ways of expressing emotions and thoughts; (2) families with high cognitive performance and educational level vs. families with low cognitive skills. Also we approach situations of monoparental families and families confronting with severe stres after loss of one parent, in order to find connections with children's psychopathology in two ways: possibility to deep the disorders and/or change the preexistent anxious psychopathology through addition of another disorder.

Keywords: anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, family models