Adoption Counselling

I have extensive experience of counselling in relation to adoption and have worked with birth parents, adopted people and adoptive parents. Each person involved in adoption has their own unique experience which is entirely personal to them. However, there are particular challenges and experiences which are commonly felt by adopted people, adoptive parents and by birth parents.

If you are an adopted person

Many adopted people feel comfortable with their life experience. However, others feel less so. Sometimes people who have been adopted describe a sense of emptiness and of not belonging, as if something were missing but they don’t know what. If you are one of these people, you may feel different from other members of your family.

These feelings of difference or emptiness can make your sense of you own identity feel fragile and you may have lots of questions that it seems noone can answer. If you have not traced, or made contact with, your birth family you may wonder about certain of your own unique characteristics, for instance why are you artistic when other members of your family are not, or you may have a particular health condition and wonder where it comes from. You may wonder what life would have been like if you had remained with your birth parent.

Being curious to know more about your family of origin, or thinking about getting in contact with a birth parent, is common but it can evoke many different emotions in relation to your adoptive family. Perhaps you feel disloyal or guilty for wanting this connection. It may be difficult to share these feelings with members of your adoptive family for fear of upsetting them.

Maybe you would like the opportunity to explore these thoughts and feelings with someone who will listen in a non judgemental way. Talking with a counsellor can help you to think more clearly about your situation and to make sense of the complex feelings you may be experiencing.

Counselling can also help you to deal with the emotions that may emerge if you decide, or have already decided, to search for a birth parent. As you embark on your search you may feel a range of sometimes conflicting emotions, perhaps apprehension, excitement, fear, hope, anxiety, and you may want to reflect on these before you take the next step.

Where people have made contact with their birth parent still other feelings can be stirred up. There can be a combination of joy and elation as well as more difficult emotions of disappointment, guilt, confusion, fear or just sadness.

Through talking with a counsellor you will be able to explore the often intense emotions you may experience at different times in your journey. Counselling can help you accept your feelings more easily and integrate them into your sense of who you are.

If you are an adoptive parent

If you have adopted a child or children you may have formed a strong bond with them. However, within all families conflict between parents and children is not uncommon, particularly at key transition points such as infancy to childhood and childhood into adolescence. As parents we need to be aware of what each of these stages evokes in ourselves and of those factors in our own history which are likely to come to the fore at these times.

As an adoptive parent, certain stages in your adoptive child’s life may present you with particular challenges. If you adopted because you were physically unable to conceive a child it can be difficult when your adopted daughter or son enters into adolescence. If you have not fully come to terms with any sense of loss at not being able to have children of your own this may surface particularly acutely at this time when your adopted son or daughter is getting in closer touch with her/his own sexuality.

If your adopted offspring decides to make contact, or is in contact, with her/ his birth parent this too may evoke difficult emotions in you.

Talking with a counsellor can help you make sense of these feelings.

If you are a birth parent

If you are a mother who relinquished a child for adoption or if you are a father who has lost contact, or is in intermittent contact, with your child you may struggle with the lack of contact or the nature of this contact. Whilst some people may come to terms with their situation others may struggle with a range of feelings, perhaps anger, guilt, sadness or loss.

Talking with a counsellor can help you explore these emotions and the challenges presented by the loss of contact, contact or intermittent contact with your child

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