Treatment of Tourette syndrome
There is no cure for Tourette's and no medication which works universally for all individuals without significant adverse effects; knowledge and understanding are the best treatments available for tics. Management of the symptoms of Tourette's may include pharmacological, behavioral and psychological therapies. While pharmacological treatment is reserved for more severe symptoms, other types of treatments may help avoid or improve symptoms of depression or social isolation, and improve supportive family functioning. Educating the patient, family, and surrounding community (school, church, friends, etc.) is a key part of treatment.
Free will
For example, people with Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders make involuntary movements and utterances (called tics) despite the fact that they would prefer not to do so when it is socially inappropriate. Tics are described as semi-voluntary or "unvoluntary", because they are not strictly "involuntary": they may be experienced as a "voluntary" response to an unwanted, premonitory urge. Tics are experienced as irresistible and must eventually be expressed. People with Tourette syndrome are sometimes able to suppress their tics for limited periods, but doing so often results in an explosion of tics afterward. The control exerted (from seconds to hours at a time) may merely postpone and exacerbate the ultimate expression of the tic.