Dr. Solyom treated him for more than a year before he tried suicide.

''George was also very depressed and told his mother that his life was so wretched that he would rather die,'' Dr. Solyom related. ''She said, 'So look George, if your life is so wretched, just go and shoot yourself.' So George went to the basement, stuck a .22-caliber rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.''

The bullet lodged in the left front lobe of the brain. Surgeons removed it but could not get out all the fragments.

''When he was transferred to our hospital three weeks later, he had hardly any compulsions left,'' Dr. Solyom said.

George had also retained the same I.Q. he had before becoming ill, Dr. Solyum said, and he returned to school, got a new job and is now in his second year of college. #3% in U.S. May Be Compulsive The story was also reported in today's issue of The Los Angeles Times.

New research indicates that as much as 3 percent of the United States population displays some obsessive-compulsive behavior, said Dr. Michael Jenike, a psychiatrist at Harvard University.