ENCOPRESIS: A Review of Thirty‐two Cases

Thirty‐two children attending a child psychiatric department with encopresis are described. Twenty‐six were discontinuous and only 6 were continuous soilers. As a group they came from low socio‐economic, socially incompetent families and a number of children had evidence of developmental lags or neurological impairment. Coercive toilet training featured very rarely in the case histories. Twenty‐three of the 26 discontinuous soilers had experienced stressful events prior to the onset of the symptom and many came from disrupted families. They were, as a group, anxious children whose associated symptoms fell into the categories of neurotic or developmental disorders rather than of conduct or mixed disorders. Copyright © 1973, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved