Schizophrenia or OCD? (lSchizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder?)

Despite the common dislike for me, the administration of the Central City Hospital nevertheless, sometimes sent their friends or relatives to me for treatment. It was not love that was caused not only by the positive results of my treatment of patients, but also by my insistence on getting a full-time job as a psychotherapist, which was allocated to the hospital by the Regional Health Department, but distributed among doctors of other specialties close to the chief physician. The administration allocated me a room in a former morgue, where the dampness was such that mold grew along the walls like trees and in the summer months I could catch a cold several times, but I was pleased with that little just to work in my favorite segment.
On one of my patient reception days, a woman of about fifty turned to me with a request to help her son who was in poor mental condition.

Addressing me, she said that she was sent to me by the head doctor of the hospital, to which I replied that it would be better if she did not tell me about it, since I treated  all patients with due attention, and the head doctor who did not give me the opportunity to work as a psychotherapist did not command my  respect.
Having agreed to see the patient, I invited him to enter the office. A young man of 14 years old stood before me, thin, of an average height. When addressing him, he answered monosyllabically, it seemed that he was confused and immersed in some of his inner experiences. Given the patient's low contact and signs of autism, the first impression was that I was receiving a patient with schizophrenia. I voiced my doubts about the possibility of giving her son psychotherapy.

However, she insisted that I take up his treatment, because this is her only son and in the city many tried to cure him and unsuccessfully and she hopes only for me. After what she said, it was difficult to refuse treatment. And I undertook, although I clearly saw that it would be extremely difficult to treat such a patient.
Before treatment, I asked the patient's mother to tell in detail about how the disease arose and how it was then manifesting itself. Unfortunately, the patient himself was not going to answer any questions. It turned out to be  the following: the child did not suffer from any previous nervous disorders. The boy came home after school and decided to hang his things in the closet, when he opened it, he saw his stepfather hanged in the closet (who suffered from alcoholism, alcoholics can have sudden suicides in a state of alcoholic dysphoria).

After that, the child closed in on himself, answered the mother's questions monosyllabically and strangeness in behavior appeared. The oddities manifested themselves in the following: the day began with the fact that it was impossible to get him out of bed, when he managed to dress for a long time due to repeated actions: could dress and take off socks, pants, tie laces several times, he washed his hands for a long time and washed, opened and closed the curtains in the room, could choose one or another spoon or fork for a long time, when, finally, he managed to get ready for school, before leaving the apartment he made several rotational movements into the circle of his axis, then he asked his mother to open the door, he took a few steps and jumped over the threshold.

But when he left the house, he walked about an hour to school, which had only 10 minutes to go to, because the short road passed near the cemetery, and after the death of his stepfather he could not go this road and chose another longer one. It turned out that he came to school with a great delay. While at school, he practically did not react to anyone, was thoughtful, could look at one point on duty. He actually stopped communicating with friends. There was a picture, if not  of a psychosis, then a very severe nervous disorder. After taking into account all the information about the patient, I was inclined to believe that the boy was down with "obsessive-phobic neurosis." The beginning of treatment did not promise anything good: the patient almost did not react to the suggestions and did not even plunge into a slight hypnotic state.

He practically did not enter into verbal contact, answered questions occasionally and monosyllabically. After 5-7 sessions, I still tried to cause certain inspired movements of the upper extremities and I succeeded! Finally, there was an opportunity to influence the patient. Gradually, without forcing events, I managed to plunge the patient into a deep stage of hypnosis. But I did not stop there, practically I managed to cause all types of inspired hallucinations in a state of deep hypnosis (including negative hallucinations, when after getting out of a hypnotic state, as a result of preliminary suggestion, the patient could not see a standing object right in front of him).

Considering that most of the intrusive and ritual actions arose in the apartment, the treatment was transferred to it. It was there I had to use suggestion to model the states that he had after waking up. Modeling certain obsessive actions, I immediately filmed the severity of their manifestations, it was a long and painstaking work, but it brought its results, the boy completely got rid of all manifestations of the disease and returned to his usual full life. The entire course of treatment took about forty sessions. It is not difficult to assume how this young man would have ended his life if he had been treated as a patient with schizophrenia and put in a ward with such patients. P.S: A few years later I saw him in the company of young girls, he walked with a poise and smoked a cigarette, but he never greeted the doctor.