Sections
Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Specific Phobia, Panic Disorder, Social
Phobia, and Selective Mutism: Introduction | Diagnostic Criteria and Additional Features | Epidemiology and Comorbidity | Etiology, Mechanisms, and Risk Factors | Screening and Assessment | Treatment | Early Intervention and Prevention | Research Directions | Summary Points | References
Excerpt
When providing care to anxious youth, clinicians
must distinguish normal, transient, developmentally appropriate
worries and fears, as well as responses to the stressors of daily
life, from anxiety disorders. Worries and fears are distinct concepts: worry involves
anxious apprehension and thoughts focused on the possibility of
negative future events, while fear is
related to the response to threat or danger that is perceived as
actual or impending. Occasional worry is normative in children (Muris et al. 1998). The fears reported by children tend to decline
with increasing age and change over time from immediate and tangible
concerns to anticipatory and less tangible ones, whereas the content
and complexity of worries increase with age and cognitive ability
(Craske 1997).