Search

Objective: Understanding, from clinical material, the psychological factors present in the psychoanalytic treatment of adoptees and their vicissitudes throughout childhood and adolescence. Development: Ruben's three periods of analysis are presented: early genital stage, latency, and puberty-early adolescence, showing how in the analytical relationship differences in the expression of the adoption issue depending on maturation processes become evident. The analyst's hypotheses concerning the meaning of the clinical manifestations of each stage of the process are presented. Conclusions: Through the analytic relation, the way an adoptee works through and finds the significance of different aspects of their adoption is made evident, including how it articulates with his/ her maturation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine whether adopted children are more likely to have emotional or behavioral problems than non-adopted children. Emotional and behav ioral problems were investigated in a sample of children aged 7 to 16. There were three comparison groups of non-adopted children. The results indicate that adopted children show, on average, more problems of this type than their peers. The biggest problems are expressed by children in residential foster care, with other adopted children in an intermediate position. In addition, in general, boys manifest greater problems than girls; but th problems of adopted girls are greater than would be generally expected for their gender. Finally, there are no differences between children of primary education or secondary education age. Additional research examining the variability in the group of adopted children warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author describes how Yolanda creates her lifelong family novel across the years. Yolanda is an adopted daughter who begins her four phase analysis at the age of 4, concluding it when she was 25. During all this time the patient creates her family novel confronting different fantasies related to her adoption. In the first phase (4-8 years): she goes from a first version stating that: "My mother had no life… I was born from a Petra (stone)" to the fantasy: "One mother stole my other mother". In the second phase (8-11 years): her fantasies concerning her origin spin around a triangular relation, formed by two women (two mothers) and a child. Then she confronts the two couples of denigrated parents and creates the third fantasy related with her adoption: "My parents were so poor they couldn't have me". In the third phase (17-18 years): she analyses her first pregnancy and her voluntary abortion as a way to understand, through action, the reasons for her adoption and to elaborate identification with a filicidic mother. In the fourth phase (21-25 years): she establishes a stable link with her boyfriend. She gets pregnant again and she gives birth to her child. Assuming this child as his son, she also assumes herself as the child of her adoptive parents and take them as her family. The author argues that it is during the analytical process and thanks to the transferential link when the adopted kids can confront and work out the first narcissistic wounds caused by their adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]