Can a Person Have Separation Anxiety as Well as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Reader’s Question

I am in school to be a clinical social worker and one of my cases has clear OCD (obsessions about something bad happening if she doesn’t repeatedly count/tap/touch things), but I want to know if she also may have Separation Anxiety. She is able to go to school and her sports/dance lessons, but becomes angry with her mother if her mother wants to go somewhere and this client has nothing to do. She also will not go to sleep-overs because she is, “afraid of being the last one awake.” Could this girl qualify for SAD or does she just have SAD-like symptoms?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Individuals with anxiety-based conditions often qualify for more than one anxiety disorder diagnosis. Sometimes they meet all the criteria for multiple diagnoses and sometimes they don’t. In the DSM, some of the NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) categories are reserved for disturbances that don’t quite meet the criteria for a specific other category, or when the clinical picture includes “mixed” features of the various categories. Sometimes it appears that someone has failed to meet all the criteria for a specific category simply because insufficient information has been obtained about the nature, scope, and prevalence of signs and symptoms. A thorough history-taking as well as systematic evaluation should help determine the full diagnostic picture.