BACKGROUND Adult separation anxiety disorder (ASAD) has been identified recently, but there is a paucity of data about its prevalence and associated characteristics amongst anxiety patients. This study assessed the prevalence and risk factor profile associated with ASAD in an anxiety clinic. METHODS Clinical psychologists assigned 520 consecutive patients to DSM-IV adult anxiety subcategories...

Distress is defined as pain or suffering affecting the body, a bodily part, or the mind (MerriamWebster, 2011). Separation anxiety in dogs is a distress response to separation from the figure to which the dog is most attached (Palestrini et al., 2010). This paper will focus on separation anxiety in the absence of the owner. The complex aetiology of separation anxiety means that the underlying c...

The present study examined the relation between maternal anxiety symptoms and child anxiety symptoms and evaluated whether a reporting bias is associated with maternal anxiety. Fifty-seven mother-child pairs participated. All children had features or diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder, and/or social phobia. Measures of maternal symptomatology and child ...

DSM-5 has lifted the age criterion in the definition of separation anxiety disorder thereby overturning the long-standing convention of restricting the diagnosis to childhood. Previously, adults with separation anxiety symptoms were assigned to other conventional categories such as panic disorder, agoraphobia or generalized anxiety disorder. Over the past two decades, an evolving body of resear...

INTRODUCTION In a previous paper, that on "Separation Anxiety" (1960), I sketched briefly the sequence of responses to be observed when young children are removed from their mothers and placed with strangers. After delineating the three phases—Protest, Despair, Detachment3—I pointed out that "the phase of Protest raises the problem of separation anxiety; Despair that of grief and mourning; Deta...

Recent evidence suggests that a clinical form of separation anxiety can be observed in adults. An important question of relevance to defining the construct of adult separation anxiety is whether there is discontinuity between that constellation and other forms of anxiety. In the present study, 2 taxometric procedures - Mean Above Minus Below a Cut and Maximum Eigenvalue - were used to assess wh...

Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychological disorders in younger patients, affecting 6% to 20% of developed countries children and adolescents (Walkup et al. 2008). Separation anxiety is the only anxiety disorder restricted to infancy, childhood, or adolescence (APA, 2000). Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is defined by developmentally inappropriate, excessive, persistent, and un...