If you don't know where to start, but you have a feeling that adoption might be something you need to address in your life and you are considering therapy, group therapy can be a powerful option. What are some of the benefits of group? Know yourself better as you explore your reaction to ...read more
Family Relationships: Navigating the Holidays
Today’s blog post will be a short one, to provide a good resource and some hope for sailing through the holidays without too much turmoil, inner or outer. In particular I want to point you to a good, readable and generally applicable blog post from live happy with 7 sane tips for how to get ...read more
The Body Keeps The Score: Lessons from Trauma Treatment
The first chapter of The Body Keeps The Score looks at how van der Kolk came to be interested in the problem of trauma treatment from his work with Vietnam veterans. He discusses an early case that had a big impact on him, and led him to search for answers. He also talks about how little was ...read more
Why Join an Adoption Therapy Group (vs. Adoption Support Group) for Adoptees?
Why Join an Adoption Therapy Group (vs. Adoption Support Group) for Adoptees? The easy answer is that you want change, and you want to have powerful support and accountability along the way. In an adoption support group or adoption therapy group, most people learn that while healing is good ...read more
Adoptee Rights Legislation in Albany A5494/S3419
Historic Adoptee Rights Legislation Passes in Albany The Clean Bill of Adoptee Rights was voted on and passed in the legislature on Friday. Now it goes to the Governor’s Office for signature. I want to thank Assemblyman David Weprin and Senator Velmanette Montgomery for sponsoring this ...read more
Clinical Recommendations: Adoptees and Loss in Adulthood (Part 4 of 4)
This is the fourth of four posts that began as a paper given at the New Jersey Let’s Talk Adoption Conference on April 1, 2017 to a group of adoptive parents, adoptees, adoption social workers and others interested in adoption who had gathered as part of a day-long conference. (To start at the ...read more
Results of Adoptee Survey (Part 3 of 4)
This is the third of four posts that began as a paper given at the New Jersey Let’s Talk Adoption Conference on April 1, 2017 (to read the whole series start here). I spoke to adoptive parents, adoptees and social workers interested in adoption who gathered at a day-long conference. The organizers ...read more
Loss and grieving (for adoptees and everybody else) Part 2 of 4
This post began as a paper given at the New Jersey Let’s Talk Adoption Conference on April 1, 2017 to a group of adoptive parents, adoptees, adoption social workers and others interested in adoption who had gathered as part of a day-long conference. As I explained in my first post in this series ...read more
What is it about grief, loss and adult adoptees? (Part 1 of 4)
Dear adoptee: are you, or is someone you know, struggling with a loss that you don’t think you can get over? Have you had the experience of having your life grind to a halt because someone left, or died, or something you were counting on fell through? This is such a common and painful part of ...read more
Adoptee Reading List
I stumbled across an excellent site today with a curated list of 205 books related to adoption written by or recommended by adoptees. Several are already in my library and several more are in my to read pile, but this is really an embarrassment of riches. Reading people's individual narratives ...read more