1. Introduction
The peak onset for many psychiatric disorders is adolescence,
a time of remarkable physical and behavioural changes (Paus et al.,
2008), but evidence for the onset of psychiatric disorders earlier in
childhood is provided, for example, by ADHD and anxiety disorders
(Sadock and Alcott Sadock, 2009). Among the varieties of anxiety
disorders, separation anxiety disorder (SAD) demand particular
attention for three reasons. First, children suffering from separation
anxiety disorder cause major and readily observable difficulties in
everyday social life between the affected child and her or his
parents. That is, children with SAD are reluctant to be separated
from major attachment figures because of fears that something
horrible might happen to the attachment figure (American
Psychiatric Association (APA), 2009: Diagnostic and statistical
manual of mental disorders DSM-IV; see also Allen et al., in press).