Reconsideration of School Refusal with Separation Anxiety

Abstract

　　This paper aims to examine whether separation anxiety caused school refusal in the case of a girl aged 6. I concluded that her school refusal was not caused by separation anxiety, but by other reasons which made her afraid.

　　Psychological researchers have tried to discover the reason for the high number of school refusals, especially in today's Japan. A. M. Johnson et al. in 1941, supposed that every "school phobia", school refusal is caused by separation anxiety between the mother and child. This assumption is still supported by some researchers, particularly for younger refusers. Other reasons are readily given for older children, such as too much School work, under-achievement, delinquency, laziness, serious. bullying, etc. Separation anxiety is apt to be thought of as the cause of school refusal in younger children. Is this true however?

　　I carefully examined one case of a school girl in the first grade. Certainly, there were symptoms of separation anxiety in this case. The girl wouldn’t move, cried with acute fear, and refused to go to school when her parents compelled her to go. Therefore this case might be classified as one of separation anxiety. But my opinion was different.

　　First, separation anxiety should be the greatest when she has to separate from her mother for the first attendance. Her first fear appeared when. she wanted to go to her friend’s house and occurred three months after her entrance into school. Besides, there was not any reliable evidence of a poorly resolved dependency relationship. between her and the mother. The mother didn’t try to hold on to her overprotectively.

　　To intervene in this case helpfully, I used a systemic approach. I linked the child’s system to the school (friends) system. For that, I expected the mother's role to be to accompany the girl until she would feel easy at her school. The girl’s inside (body) system showed problems as well and changed with the procedure for other systems. After about six months, she was able to go to school without any refusal, her body trouble, asthma had faded away and her anxiety had disappeared.

　　In conculusion, separation anxiety was not the cause of her school refusal, but a clue to the solution. The case, starting with the intervention helped her to conquer many intersystemic problems.