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The Girl Who Ate Her House—Pica as an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

A Case Report

Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Samuel Law

University of Toronto, Canada, laws{at}smh.toronto.on.ca

Clare Pain

University of Toronto, Canada

This report concerns the interesting clinical phenomenology of a 17-year-old Ethiopian female student with a long-standing history of ingesting nonnutritive materials. She was initially non-selective, but later began more exclusively consuming mud obtained from a wall in front of her house. She suffered from a feeding and eating disorder known as pica. Currently, there is no clearly established etiology for pica. This patient's particular psychopathology—recurrent, unwanted, intrusive images and thoughts of the mud wall and of eating the mud; feelings of distress and anxiousness that were not relieved unless she consumed mud; and significant effects on her daily life from her uncontrollable need to return home to eat mud from her wall—suggests an ego-dystonic, obsessive thought-distress-consumption-relief pattern that is consistent with obsessive-compulsive disorder. This case may contribute to the etiological understanding that some forms of pica may be part of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.

Key Words: obsessive-compulsive disorder • obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders • pica • Ethiopia

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