Adoption
If you have been affected by adoption in some way, you may benefit from seeking help from a counsellor such as myself who is trained in this particular area. Adoption is complicated, and untangling your thoughts and feelings isn’t always easy.

Adoptees
Individuals who are adopted can face difficult and conflicting emotions. You may have spent months, maybe years in the care system, being moved back and forth with no real support from a ‘family’ unit. This can be traumatic for a child of any age and can lead to behavioural, attachment and developmental issues that follow you into adult life. Many adoptees view their adoption as rejection from their birth parents. Some adoptees may feel deserving of rejection, that somehow this is their fault and there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Identity is often an issue for adoptees, it’s often the not knowing that causes the need to fill in the gaps of their life story often with negative thoughts and scenarios.

Adoptive parents
Adoptive parents and children may experience difficulty bonding with one another. This may happen initially or it may happen later, especially a teenager exploring their identity.
An adopted child may want to get in touch with their birth parent(s) or vice versa and this can be a concern for some adoptive parents. During this stage, it’s a natural response as an adoptive parent to feel protective and concerned for your child. Supporting their search for their birth family and watching them reconnect can be difficult.

Birth parents
Placing your child for adoption is a huge decision and seldom an easy one to make. No matter what the circumstances were, even if you knew adoption was the best option at the time, the pain and sacrifice involved would have made this a difficult and complex decision for you. The child may be ‘better off’ but the grief and regret you may experience does not just disappear, and can last a lifetime. You may experience something called secondary grief where you grieve for the loss of the parenting role or for the person your child may have become. You may experience identity issues, especially with an open adoption where you maintain a degree of contact. You may feel incomplete without a child or if you go on to have more children it may affect your ability to bond. You may be considering reconnecting with your child and this can feel overwhelming. Is it the right thing to do – do they want to be contacted? Or you may decide not to see your adopted child, it may be too difficult, too painful, you may have a new family.

Whatever your situation I am here to help, it really is good to talk.