Separation anxiety in mothers of latency-age fearful children

The hypothesis that mothers of children who have symptoms indicative of separation anxiety are themselves separation-anxious was tested by scoring mothers' TAT themes for separation concerns. The stories of 15 mothers of fearful children were compared to the stories of 26 mothers of children manifesting behavior disorders and 21 mothers of children having had no psychiatric contact. Different kinds of separation concerns were found to differentiate the groups of mothers. The stories of mothers of fearful children expressed significantly more concerns about abandonment and rejection and more often expressed a desire to stay near the loved one; the mothers of children with behavior disorders were found to tell significantly more stories with nurturance-succorance themes. The results lend support to the theory of anxious attachment in that mothers of fearful children seem to share the same concerns that have been ascribed to their children. On the other hand, it seems that separation anxiety may not be a unidimensional construct as different components seem to be more relevant to some symptom clusters than to others.