About half a century ago Bowlby (1973) wrote about separation anxiety (anxiety caused by separation from a loved and missed person) and noticed that children sooner or later suffer in their mother’s absence, reacting to all the strange and unexpected things. Following the view of William James (1980) that “the greatest source of terror in infancy is loneliness” (Bowlby, idem, 30) he offered several attempts to explain the fear of separation: “distress and worry are irreducible to other terms, and that only the child’s attachment to his mother is inherently primary reflections. Freud’s theory of transformed libido (1905), Rank’s theory of birth-trauma (1924), Freud’s signal theory (1926), Klein’s theory of cruelty anxiety (1934), Klein’s theory of depressive anxiety ( 1935), and Suttie (1935), Hermann (1936), Fairbairn (1943, 1963), and Winnicott (1952). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III (DSM-III) (1980) introduced the category called childhood and adolescence anxiety disorders with three specific anxiety disorders: separation anxiety disorder, urgency disorder, and avoidance disorder (Weems & Silverman, 2013). ). , 513). While the DSM-IV left the last two subcategories, the DSM-V included the following anxiety disorders: Will be time-consuming, distressing, and highly intrusive, including repeated intentions about pollution, repeated doubts, having things in a certain order, and aggressive or disastrous urges as severe as repetitive intentions or behavior patterns), panic disorder (sudden and severe anxiety attacks), and post-traumatic tension disorder (PTSD) (occurring as a result of injury or severe mental shock, typically involving sleep disturbance and persistent vivid recollection of the experience) It is characterized by persistent mental and emotional tension, manifested by dull reactions to others and to the outside world) (idem, 515). Weems & Silverman (idem, ibidem) also pointed out that anxiety disorders show a high rate of comorbidity with each other.
Elliott and Smith (2010, 280-281) distinguish six medical fear problems: fear of separation from mother, father, or caregiver (6-24 months); fear of foreign adults (6-10 months); fear of unfamiliar peers (2-3 years); fear of animals, the dark and imaginary creatures (2-6 years old); school phobia (3-6 years, 10-11 years); and fear of being evaluated by others (13-19 years). He argues that the dread of being evaluated by others almost defines adolescence and that many young people are highly concerned about what their gluttons think of them (Elliott et al, 2010). Although anxiety disorders should gradually decrease as adolescence progresses, it is not uncommon for them to persist into late adolescence. It has also been noted that several adult-occurring anxiety disorders occur infrequently in children: agoraphobia (“more or less irrational fear of entering open or crowded places, leaving or being in one’s own home”. places where escape is distressing”), panic disorder, and post-traumatic tension disorder. , but purely panic disorder occurs in late adolescence or later (Elliott et al, 2010).
Specialist clinical psychologist Hülya İlhan
EABCT Therapist, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, EMDR Level 2 Therapist
