MONDAY 20 AUGUST 2012

MON 19:00 World News Today (b01m35xf)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
Congo

The first Europeans to penetrate the vast forests of central Africa encountered an exuberance of animals, plants and minerals. Their accounts created a sensation back in their own countries, none more so than that of the gorilla, yet has this abundance of wildlife and resources been at the expense of the region's indigenous populations?


MON 20:30 Nature's Microworlds (b01m42rx)
Svalbard

In a revelatory look at Svalbard, the most northerly region in the series, Steve Backshall leaves no stone unturned as he unravels the secrets that lie covered in ice for most of each year. Svalbard is cold, dark and foreboding, yet it is home to the world's largest land predator and the most northerly population of large herbivore. But Steve discovers that the real secret to this place comes from a very different world.


MON 21:00 Growing Children (b01m42rz)
OCD

In this fascinating film, Laverne Antrobus explores the complicated and often misunderstood condition of obsessive compulsive disorder. Laverne reveals what is actually happening in the brains of children with OCD that makes them so different from other youngsters. She meets OCD sufferers, examines the causes of such a debilitating disorder and takes a look at the innovative methods being used to overcome it. She meets the parents whose lives have been overtaken by caring for their child and interviews the scientists investigating the causes. As Laverne learns about the illness, we get an amazing insight into the developing mind and how we all process day-to-day anxieties and stress.

OCD is one of the most common anxiety disorders in children, affecting over 1 per cent of people in the UK. Sufferers have intrusive obsessive thoughts that can cause extreme anxiety which compels them to repeatedly perform compulsive behaviours aimed at reducing that anxiety. Symptoms can range broadly, something that Laverne discovers through visiting two different teenagers. Anna suffers from obsessive hand washing, something which is beginning to dominate her life more and more. In a powerful interview with Laverne we learn just how much control OCD has over her and the way she thinks. The next teenager that Laverne meets is Jonathan. In contrast to Anna his OCD is characterised by obsessive irrational thoughts in which he thinks he has harmed someone, even though it is something he has never done.

Laverne embarks on a quest to discover why anxiety is part of human nature and what happens when it goes too far. At King's College London she conducts a test to measure her response to threats and the theory that anxiety has evolved as a defensive response. Laverne also confronts her own fear of spiders at an anxiety workshop where she is made to handle a tarantula.

Laverne then examines the different way that brains of children with OCD actually develop. Why are they so over-anxious? What has happened? A combined team of scientists are carrying out one of the most comprehensive studies into the OCD brain, giving Laverne a chance to gain a unique understanding into the condition. As the scans from this research are fully analysed, they are producing some extraordinary three-dimensional images of a key area of the brain thought to be affected by OCD - the basal ganglia.

Jonathan's life is so dominated by his OCD that he has resorted to a five-day therapy for teenagers and their families in cognitive behavioural therapy at the Maudsley hospital in south London. Laverne has a privileged insight into this treatment as she follows the family through the course of an emotional week. She sees how the Maudsley team tackles OCD head on by making people with the condition confront their fears. In some dramatic scenes Laverne witnesses Jonathan being given a knife to handle and asked to stand on the edge of a train station platform in order to face his irrational thoughts.

The exact cause of OCD is still not known, but in this powerful and heartwarming film Laverne finds out the new clues pointing to its origin. We also gain a true understanding of how it can affect people and the life-changing treatments that are on offer.


MON 22:00 The Naughty Room (b01m6mzj)
20-year-old Subaru's drug-blurred apathy is jarred by the discovery that he has a neighbour of similar age, Todd, a virtual prisoner since childhood. Trying to help Todd gives Subaru some purpose, but he fails to consider the consequences.


MON 23:15 A Century of Fatherhood (b00sxgsl)
Fathers at War

Three-part series which tells the story of the revolution in modern fatherhood in Britain during the last hundred years. Using intimate testimony, rare archive and the latest historical research it reveals the very important, and often misunderstood, role played by fathers.

The Second World War took a generation of fathers away from home to serve in the war effort. They returned home strangers to their own families, some of them disabled and broken men. But in time many did adjust, and the deprivations of war made the simple pleasures of family life and fatherhood all the sweeter.

With the growing affluence of the 50s and 60s, some dads felt they were in paradise. Yet fathers soon found themselves fighting a new war - with their teenage sons and daughters, who wanted more freedom from parental control. Now, 50 years on, some of those teenagers desperately wish they had enjoyed a closer relationship with their fathers, but for most it is too late.


MON 00:15 Men about the House (b00sxhl5)
Father may be the head of the family, a potent symbol of authority, but he has always been the butt of some of our biggest laughs in British sitcom. Over the last five decades some of our most iconic comedy dads have been bewildered by a changing world and struggled with the work/life balance. These dads have coped with every curveball their writers threw at them and in the process changed the course of British comedy. They remain our most enduring Men About The House.


MON 01:15 Nature's Microworlds (b01m42rx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 01:45 Growing Children (b01m42rz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:45 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]