Adult Separation Anxiety Test: See How Strongly Being Apart Affects You, by Area

Separation anxiety in adults: what changed in DSM-5

Until 2013, separation anxiety disorder sat in the section of the diagnostic manual reserved for conditions of infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and the criteria required that it begin before age 18. Adults who had it were, in effect, written out of the diagnosis. DSM-5 moved it into the anxiety disorders chapter, removed the age-of-onset requirement, and reworded the criteria so that the attachment figures could be a partner, a parent, a child, or a close friend rather than only a parent. For adults the pattern has to last at least six months, cause real distress or impairment, and be better explained by nothing else. The eight symptoms it lists are the ones this test is built around: excessive distress when apart or anticipating being apart, worry about harm coming to attachment figures, worry about an event that would cause separation, reluctance to go out because of that fear, fear of being alone, reluctance to sleep away from home or away from the person, nightmares about separation, and physical symptoms when separation happens or is expected; three or more are required.

The change was driven by evidence. Silove and colleagues (2015), using World Mental Health Survey data from almost 39,000 adults in 18 countries, found a lifetime prevalence of about 4.8 percent, with 43 percent of cases beginning after age 18. Adult separation anxiety is common, in other words, and most of it does not start in childhood. Bögels, Knappe, and Clark (2013) reviewed the research behind the reclassification and described it as a prevalent, frequently comorbid, and disabling condition that clinicians had been overlooking because they were not trained to look for it in adults. Manicavasagar and Silove, who built the Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire (ASA-27), have argued that it is still routinely missed.

How it differs from anxious attachment and dependent personality

Separation anxiety, anxious attachment, and dependent personality all involve a strong need for closeness and fear of its loss, and the three are often confused. Anxious attachment is a style rather than a disorder: a general tendency, formed early, to worry about whether partners really care, to want more closeness than they offer, and to read ambiguity as rejection. It shapes how someone behaves inside a relationship, but it does not usually involve dread when a partner leaves for work, nightmares about separation, or refusing to travel. Many anxiously attached people function well. If your pattern is mainly about reassurance and rejection within relationships rather than about the physical fact of being apart, our Attachment Style Quiz is the better fit, and the two can coexist.

Dependent personality disorder is broader again. Its core is a pervasive need to be taken care of, with difficulty making everyday decisions without advice, trouble disagreeing with others for fear of losing support, and urgently seeking a new relationship when one ends. The fear is of being left to manage life alone; the fear in separation anxiety is more specific and more acute, focused on harm coming to a particular person or being cut off from them. A person with separation anxiety may be entirely capable of running their own life and still be unable to tolerate their partner's work trip. If deferring to others and avoiding responsibility describe you better than distress at being apart, our Dependent Personality Disorder Test looks at that pattern. Separation anxiety is also distinct from abandonment fear in the borderline sense, which centers on the relationship ending rather than on the separation itself; our Abandonment Issues Test covers that ground.

Partners, pets, and the searches that bring people here

A large share of people who search for separation anxiety in adults are describing a partner: the dread when they travel, the compulsive checking that they arrived safely, the sleeplessness when they are out late, the way a planned weekend apart turns into days of anticipatory anxiety and, sometimes, a canceled plan. This is exactly the adult pattern DSM-5 now recognizes, and it is worth saying clearly that it is a treatable anxiety problem, not a measure of how much you love someone or a sign that the relationship is wrong. It also puts strain on the partner, who may feel monitored or responsible for your calm, which is one reason the test asks about relationship tension directly.

Pets are a different matter. Searches about separation anxiety and dogs usually mean the animal's distress when left, which is a well-described veterinary behavior problem with its own treatments and nothing to do with this page. Some people, though, recognize their own distress at leaving a pet, or at a pet's declining health, and that can be a genuine attachment-related anxiety worth taking seriously. This test is written around human attachment figures, and if the person you have in mind is a pet, answer with that bond in mind and read the result as a prompt rather than a verdict. Finally, this is not a children's test. If you are a parent worried about a child who cannot be apart from you, the questions here will not fit and the result will not help. Please talk to your child's pediatrician or family doctor, who can assess separation anxiety in children properly and refer you to a child therapist if needed.

What to do next

If your score is moderate or high, the single most useful step is an assessment with a therapist who treats anxiety disorders, and the most useful thing you can bring is specifics: who the attachment figures are, what you fear will happen when you are apart, what you avoid or arrange around it, how your body reacts, and how long this has been going on. Those details are what separate adult separation anxiety from anxious attachment, panic, or dependent patterns, and they decide the treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy with graded exposure to separations, from short and predictable to longer and less planned, is the approach with the best evidence, and it is usually combined with work on the catastrophic worries about harm that keep the fear going.

In the meantime, a few sibling tests can sharpen the picture. If the physical symptoms around separation include surges of pounding heart, breathlessness, or fear of losing control, take our Panic Disorder Test, because panic and separation anxiety often travel together. If worry has become general rather than tied to being apart, our Anxiety Test (GAD-7) gives the reading a clinician will want. And if the question underneath is about how you bond rather than about being apart, start with the Attachment Style Quiz. You can search the Psychology.com therapist directory for clinicians who specialize in anxiety. If you are ever in crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text any time in the US.

Methodology & sources

This test uses 20 original statements written for Psychology.com and informed by the DSM-5-TR criteria for separation anxiety disorder as they apply to adults, together with the adult separation anxiety research of Silove, Manicavasagar, and colleagues. The Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire (ASA-27; Manicavasagar et al., 2003) is the validated self-report instrument in this area; this page reproduces no items from it and has not been validated against it or against clinical interview. Each statement describes one feeling or behavior and is rated from never (0) to almost always (4), for a total of 0 to 80. The three areas in the breakdown, distress and worry (eight items), avoidance (six items), and physical and functional impact (six items), are our own grouping, chosen to reflect how the DSM symptoms cluster in adult life; they are not validated subscales.

The result bands are educational thirds, 0 to 26 low, 27 to 53 moderate, and 54 to 80 high, not clinical cut-offs, and no band corresponds to a diagnosis. A diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder in an adult requires at least three of eight symptoms lasting six months or longer with significant distress or impairment, assessed by a licensed clinician who can also rule out panic disorder, generalized anxiety, agoraphobia, and personality patterns that look similar. This test is written for adults answering about their own experience; it is not designed for assessing a child, and parents concerned about a child should speak to a pediatrician.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed the DSM-informed items for the adult presentation, the three-area grouping, and the wording that separates adult separation anxiety from anxious attachment and dependent patterns. Last reviewed October 5, 2026.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed., text rev. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2022.
2. Silove D, Alonso J, Bromet E, et al. Pediatric-onset and adult-onset separation anxiety disorder across countries in the World Mental Health Survey. Am J Psychiatry. 2015;172(7):647-656. doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14091185.
3. Bögels SM, Knappe S, Clark LA. Adult separation anxiety disorder in DSM-5. Clin Psychol Rev. 2013;33(5):663-674. doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.03.006.
4. Manicavasagar V, Silove D, Wagner R, Drobny J. A self-report questionnaire for measuring separation anxiety in adulthood. Compr Psychiatry. 2003;44(2):146-153. doi.org/10.1053/comp.2003.50024.
5. Manicavasagar V, Silove D. Why are we still missing adult separation anxiety disorder in clinical practice? Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2016;50(8):807-808. doi.org/10.1177/0004867416655875.

Adult Separation Anxiety Test FAQ