Separation Anxiety in Adulthood

Stefano Pini, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pisa, Italy. He is currently the Director of the Innovations in Psychiatric Treatments Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pisa, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Pisana. Dr Pini is a member of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP); of the American Psychopathological Association (APPA); and of the ECNP Anxiety Disorders Research Network (ADRN). His research interests include: clinical characterization and treatment of comorbidities between mood and anxiety disorders, bipolar and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and clinical and neurobiological correlates of anxiety disorders. He has participated in several international and national multicentre studies and received institutional grants for studies on clinical, biological and psychosocial aspects of bipolar disorder and clinical and the neurobiological characterization of adult separation anxiety disorder. He has been principal investigator for numerous clinical trials on the efficacy of antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics. Dr Pini has published in the most relevant peer-reviewed international scientific journals and serves as a reviewer for numerous psychiatric journals.Barbara Milrod is Professor of Psychiatry, Director of Psychotherapy Research at PRIME (Psychiatric Research Institute of Montefiore Einstein), Albert Einstein Medical College, Bronx, NY, United States. She was awarded her medical degree from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, United States. She did her residency training in adult and child psychiatry at the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York, at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and trained in psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.  She serves on the Editorial Board of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy journal and on the Editorial Board of the Depression & Anxiety journal. Sheis Chair of Scientific Paper Prize Committee, American Psychoanalytic Association. She was awarded the Distinguished Psychiatrist Award, American Psychiatric Association in 2015. She was the first person to manualize a brief psychodynamic psychotherapy for any DSM anxiety disorder, Panic Focused Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (PFPP), which is the first psychodynamic psychotherapy to have demonstrated, replicated efficacy for any anxiety disorder.

• Introduction to Separation Anxiety: a guide to the clinical syndrome.- Childhood Separation Anxiety: Human and Preclinical Studies.- The Psychodynamic Significance of Separation Anxiety.- Separation Anxiety in the DSM-5.- Separation Anxiety and Other Anxiety Disorders.- Separation Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.- The Relationship between Separation Anxiety and Bipolar Disorder.- The distinction of Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder: Evidence and Uncertainty.- Clinical Case descriptions and discussion.- Conclusion.