| | eMedicine - Anxiety Disorder: Separation Anxiety and School Refusal : Article by Bettina E Bernstein, DO (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21) |
 | | Some children may be more vulnerable to separation anxiety based on their temperament (ie, level of anxiety dealing with new situations) or based on environmental stresses such as the death of a close relative or an interactive pattern with an over-protective, needy, or depressed parent. |
 | | Separation anxiety disorder generally manifests with clinically significant symptoms of anxiety such as unrealistic and recurrent worries about harm of loved ones, especially when separated or faced with threatened separation from the primary attachment figure, along with severe distress and impairment in functioning. |
 | | Experts have postulated that early and traumatic separation from the attachment figure (as well as a family history of anxiety disorders or depression in first-degree relatives) may increase the likelihood of the child and, later on, the adolescent or adult developing separation anxiety disorder, school phobia, and depressive-spectrum disorders. |
| www.emedicine.com /ped/topic2657.htm (6256 words) |