Adoption affects all adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, and extended family members throughout their life. The resources in this section provide information on the lifelong impact of adoption and focus on several common themes.
Adoption Trauma: Addressing Abandonment & Attachment
Pacer Recovery Center (2020)
Presents information on difficulties that can arise after adoption including trauma, abandonment issues, attachment issues, and others.
Identity, Grief, and the Lasting Effects of Adoption
Adoption Choices of Nevada
Examines some common challenges after adoptions including around identity development, grief and loss, trauma, and birth parents.
Impact of Adoption
American Society for the Positive Care of Children
Discusses the lifelong impact of adoption on adoptees and their family members and includes information on dealing with loss and grief, identity development, low self-esteem, and other issues after an adoption.
The Impact of Adoption
The Impact of Adoption on Teen Identity Formation
Small (2020)
National Council for Adoption
Explores the trauma that separation from birth parents can cause for children and addresses the psychological impact that can occur later in life for adoptees.
The Invisible Realities of Adoption
Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York (2019)
Explains that for adoptions to be successful, children and families must work through the trauma they may experience as part of the adoption process and keep the focus on family to avoid a lifetime of negative feelings of abandonment. This article also explains the nonverbal concept of inducement.
Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency
Roszia & Maxon (2019)
Adoptalk, 2
Describes issues of adoption and permanency experienced by adoptees and members of their family including loss, rejection, shame and guilt, grief, identity issues, intimacy problems, and challenges around mastery and control.