The Emotional Experience of Adoption

<P>Adoption is an extremely complex and emotionally demanding process for all those involved. This book explores the emotional experience of adoption from a psychoanalytic perspective, and demonstrates how psychoanalytic understanding and treatment can contribute to thinking about and working with adopted children and their families.</P><P>Drawing on psychoanalytic, attachment and child development theory, and detailed in-depth clinical case discussion, <EM>The Emotional Experience of Adoption</EM> explores issues such as:</P><UL><LI>the emotional experience of children placed for adoption, and how this both shapes and is shaped by unconscious processes in the child’s inner world </LI><LI>how psychoanalytic child psychotherapy can help as a distinctive source of understanding and as a treatment for children who are either in the process of being adopted or already adopted</LI><LI>how such understanding can inform planning and decision making amongst professionals and carers.</LI></UL><P><EM>The Emotional Experience of Adoption</EM> explains and accounts for the emotional and psychological complexities involved for child, parents and professionals in adoption. It will be of interest and relevance to anyone involved at a personal level in the adoption process or professionals working in the fields of adoption, social work, child mental health, foster care and family support.</P>