Clinical Specialties

ADOPTION

As a very young therapist, I attended an agency-wide training that focused on the developmental stages of adopted teenagers.  Until that time, no other professional discipline had spoken to me so profoundly. I have since sought out as many classes and resources as I could to learn more about the psychological experience of adopted children and adults.

More recently, I have taken my learning to a higher level. In 2019, I completed a twenty-five hour National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative.  I later completed the accredited Training for Adoption Competency Program (TAC) in 2023; this comprehensive six-month program focused on key clinical skills to support adopted youth and their families.

Being part of an adoption kinship network can be complicated.  One may feel an extraordinary amount of love, but also suffer great loss.  Many adopted kids feel the loss, but do not understand it nor know how to articulate it.  Who am I? Why was I given up? Was it my fault?

As I developed my work with adopted youth, I witnessed the added pressures of adopted teens. They not only must negotiate the complicated adolescent years, but also navigate that path with the unique experience of having been relinquished by one’s birth family while being raised in a adoptive family.  I distinctly remember one young teen telling me that he felt like the '“chicken thigh”, his version of the part of the chicken that no one wanted.  His experience deeply moved me and I worked with him to acknowledge his feelings of loss while also helping him repair his wounded sense of self. 

An essential piece of the adoption equation is to help adoptive parents   understand their child's struggles. When a child feels sad or confused about being adopted it is not a rejection of their adopted family.  Sometimes there can be a disconnect between adoptive parents’ enthusiasm to receive their adopted child and the acknowledgement and awareness that deep loss inherently accompanies an adopted child. I work hard to help parents understand the layers of emotions that are part of the beautiful, yet complex, adoption experience.