Please select from the list to find out more information:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Social Phobia
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Specific Phobia
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Panic Disorder/Agoraphobia
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Depression
Dysthymia
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is among the most chronic and debilitating of the
anxiety disorders. GAD is associated with excessive, uncontrollable worry in a variety
of domains including school performance, making friends, appearance, neatness/order, health,
and “little things”. GAD may interfere with a child’s ability to participate in relationships,
activities, and school, and typically, symptoms do not remit without effective treatment.
Lifetime prevalence of GAD has been estimated above 5%.
Key symptoms include:
Excessive and uncontrollable worrying
Restlessness or feeling on edge
Irritability
Fatigue
Muscle tension
Sleep disturbance
Difficulty concentrating
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Social Phobia
Social phobia is an intense fear of becoming embarrassed or humiliated in social situations. It
often runs in families and may be accompanied by depression. Some situations that commonly
make children with social phobia anxious are public speaking or performing, meeting
new people, social gatherings, eating in public, using public restrooms, and speaking to
authority figures. Children with social phobia often worry that they will do or say
something that will lead to humiliation, or that their anxiety will be noticed by others
who will then judge them negatively. As a result, these children tend to either avoid the
situations they fear or endure them with considerable distress. Social phobia is more severe
than shyness, and may lead to impairment in several domains of functioning (e.g., school attendance
and performance, social activities, initiating and maintaining peer relationships).
Key symptoms include:
Intense fear of social situations
Exposure to feared situations almost invariably provokes significant anxiety
(e.g., crying, tantrums, freezing, shrinking)
Excessive worry about embarrassment or being judged by others
Avoidance of feared social situations
Performance anxiety
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Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by excessive anxiety about being away
from home or one’s caregiver. Children with SAD often worry that something bad will happen
to them (e.g., getting kidnapped) or their caregiver (e.g., car accident, heart attack) if they are
apart. This separation-based worry and anxiety can lead to impairments in several domains of a
child’s functioning including school (e.g., school refusal), social activities (e.g., avoidance of sleepovers),
and adaptive independent behavior (e.g., difficulty sleeping alone at night).
Key symptoms include:
Excessive anxiety about separation from home or caregiver
Excessive worry about loss or harm to self or caregiver
Fear of being alone without adults
Fear of sleeping without caregiver nearby
Nightmares about separation
Complaints of physical symptoms when away from caregiver
School refusal behavior
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Specific Phobias
Specific phobias are intense, irrational fears of specific objects, animals, or situations.
Common fears include heights, water, public transportation, storms, closed spaces,
tunnels, bridges, and certain animals (spiders, snakes, bees, dogs, etc.). Children
with specific phobias typically make a conscious effort to avoid the situation or experience
that they fear, and exposure to the feared object or event almost invariably elicits
considerable anxiety. These fears become a significant problem when they interfere
with a child’s daily life (e.g., fear of dogs prevents a child from going over her friend’s house).
Specific phobias affect more than 1 in 10 people.
Key symptoms include:
Intense, persistent, and irrational fear that is associated with significant anxiety
and cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation
Exposure to feared object or situation almost invariably provokes significant
anxiety
(e.g., crying, tantrums, freezing)
Persistent effort to avoid the feared object or situation
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involves "obsessions" (recurrent and unwanted
thoughts, impulses, or images that cause anxiety or distress), "compulsions" (repetitive behaviors
or mental acts that a person feels driven to do in order to reduce distress or avoid some feared
event or situation), or both. Typical obsessions include fears of being contaminated by germs or
poison, fears of causing harm to oneself or others, and fears of committing some
unacceptable action. Typical compulsions include excessive washing, cleaning, checking,
reassurance seeking, hoarding, and insisting that things be done in a specific order or
pattern. OCD
thoughts and behaviors are senseless, repetitive, distressing, and
sometimes harmful, but
they are also very difficult to control or overcome.
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Panic Disorder/Agoraphobia
A panic attack is a sudden, acute episode of intense anxiety that occurs “out of the blue”. A panic attack
involves such a high level of anxiety that children might feel they are having a heart attack, going to die,
going crazy, or losing control. When a child has recurring, unexpected panic attacks, fears future
panic attacks, and makes changes in his or her behavior as a result, a diagnosis of Panic Disorder
is given. During a panic attack, children may experience acute physical symptoms such as
shortness of breath, tingling sensations, ringing in the ears, a sense of impending doom,
trembling, a feeling of choking, chest pain, sweating, and heart pounding. In the case of
Panic Disorder, the child’s catastrophic misinterpretation and subsequent fear of these somatic symptoms
are the source of future panic attacks. Children with Panic Disorder often avoid certain places
(e.g., movie theatres, malls) in which they fear they might have a panic attack, a condition known as Agoraphobia.
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) features intense anxiety responses to a past traumatic event.
Typical experiences that may lead to PTSD in childhood include physical or sexual abuse, natural disasters,
or a serious accident or fire (e.g., car accident).
Key symptoms include:
Re-experiencing the trauma (e.g., uncontrollable memories, nightmares, or flashbacks)
Heightened physiological arousal (e.g., insomnia, irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance)
Avoidance of cues associated with the trauma
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Depression
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in childhood features a depressed or irritable mood and a loss of
interest or pleasure in daily activities for at least 2 weeks. These symptoms represent a change from
the child's normal mood and result in impairment in the child’s school and interpersonal functioning.
MDD is one of the most common and serious mental health problems facing children and adults today.
Every year, more than 1 in 20 Americans experience a depressive episode.
Key symptoms include:
Depressed or irritable mood
A loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities
Significant weight loss or weight gain
Sleep disturbance
Fatigue or loss of energy
Psychomotor agitation or retardation
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
Difficulty concentrating or indecisiveness
Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
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Dysthymia
Childhood dysthymia is characterized by sad or irritable mood for at least one year. The symptoms of
dysthymia are the same as those listed above for major depression, but are generally less intense. An episode
of dysthymia tends to be less severe but more chronic than an episode of major depression.