Description
Book SynopsisThis book addresses the psychosocial complexities of adoption from multiple perspectives, including the biological family, adopted child, and adoptive parents. It highlights the must-have sensitivity and tactfulness for recurring discussions of the adoption situation.
Organized into 10 parts, the book begins with a brief outline of the history of adoption and its legal status from antiquity to modern times. Chapters in the first half of the book examine critical topics such as different parenthood situations, stress and pain processes in early childhood, and challenges of domestic, international, transcultural, transracial, foster, and sexual and gender minorities adoption. Within the second half of the book, chapters describe the birth parents' difficulties in relinquishing their infant, the motives of the adoptive parents, and the hardships of the adoptive children in self-development. The final chapters address the topic of deprivation, traumatization, and developmental trauma disorders on a psychodynamic level accompanied by clinical vignettes.
Unique, perceptive, and insightful,
Adoption, A Life Long Process is an essential resource for all of those involved in the adoption process, including counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, adoptive parents, and biological parents.
Table of ContentsContent
Foreword
I Introduction
History of adoption
II Parenthood
Early parent-child interaction and disorders
Parenthood by adoption
Parenthood by reproductive medicine
Parenthood by surrogacy
Parenthood of foster children
III Stress and Pain
Neurobiological responses to stress
Separation distress
Neurobiological aspects of pain
Pain and stress processing
IV Adoption Research
Genetic – environmental interactions
Risk, protective factors, and resilience
Early versus late adoption
Epidemiological studies
Domestic, international, transracial, foster Adoption
Adoption by sexual and gender minorities
Open adoption
Dissolution of the adoption relationship
V Relationship biological parents – children – adoptive parents
Biological parents
Adoptive parents
Children
Siblings
Relationship and filiation breakdown
Psychic trauma and developmental trauma disorders
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Intergenerational transmission
Mourning process
Pathological grief and secrets
Relationship and filiation building
Adoption attachment and relationship
Conflicts of loyalty
Revealing the adoption
Family Romance
Identity development and crisis
Search for origins
Adoption of older children
Family Dynamics
Narrative
VI Clinical Vignettes
Preschool age
School age
Adolescence
Young adulthood
VII Professional help
Therapeutic interventions
Family Therapy
Individual psychotherapy of the child
Psychoanalytically oriented psychodrama group therapy
Specific topics in the therapeutic process with adoptees
Tasks of the Placement office
Pre and postadoption services
VIII Annex
The Story of Oedipus
Glossary, Literature
