Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care: Positive Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Challenges

162 Pages·2015·0.59 MB·English

by  Renee Wolfs

Trim: 152 x 229mm
Spine width: 9mm
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Practical and encouraging, this guide is designed to offer a route to recovery L RENÉE WOLFS
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from grief and loss after adoption or long-term foster care. N
G HEALING
Children growing up in adoptive families or foster care often have complicated F
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feelings about the loss of their birth parents which become all the more complex
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as they gain independence and become young adults, and which can endure
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throughout their lives. Common life events such as entering new relationships,
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building a family or losing a loved one can give rise to difficult questions about U FOR ADULTS
Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care
their own childhood and identity. Renée Wolfs provides grounded advice to aid L
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recovery and provides the reader with a useful tool: The Circle of Connecting.
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The Circle provides strategies for healing, spanning all seven elements of your W
who grew up in
life: your body, mind, heart, environment, past, present and future.
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This is essential reading for older teens and adults who need help addressing
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feelings of grief and loss, as well as those who support them, including adoptive
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and foster parents, social workers, counsellors and therapists. E ADOPTION
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‘Let yourself be inspired and moved by this lovely and intense book. It deals U
with the pain of loss but with restoring connections, too. It's about coming P
home, really.’ I FOSTER CARE
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–From the Foreword by Marlene van Steensel, Founder
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of and Trainer at Be4you2.nl and Former Foster Child
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‘Renée Wolfs has delivered a fundamentally important book for adopted adults P
and people who were in foster care… [From] the many personal examples given T
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by adopted adults and fostered people throughout the book, we can see that we O
are clearly not alone, even if we feel that we often are. Wolfs offers a neat and N Positive Strategies for
containing method to manage this myriad of emotions so that we can learn to O
accept and live with the losses and changes that visit us all during our lives.’ R Overcoming Emotional Challenges
–Jean Milsted, Registered Intermediary, Adoption Services for Adults, England F
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Renée Wolfslives near Utrecht, the Netherlands. She has a Master’s degree T
in Communication and specialises in communication, counselling and grief. E
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Renée is the author of Adoption Conversations and More Adoption
Conversations(BAAF) which are popular among many families of adopted C
and foster children. Previously, she has worked as a copywriter, grief A
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counsellor and group coach. She writes columns and articles in adoption
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magazines and is an adoptive mother of three teenagers.
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Jessica Kingsley Publishers W
73 Collier Street
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London N1 9BE, UK
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400 Market Street, Suite 400 S
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
JKP
Cover design by Blue Box Design

Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care
of related interest
Twenty-Life Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make
Second Edition
Sherrie Eldridge
ISBN 978 1 84905 774 5
eISBN 978 1 78450 017 7
Building Self-Esteem in Children and Teens
Who Are Adopted or Fostered
Dr. Sue Cornbluth
Foreword by Nyleen Shaw
ISBN 978 1 84905 466 9
eISBN 978 0 85700 844 2
HEALING
FOR ADULTS
who grew up in
ADOPTION
OR
FOSTER CARE
Positive Strategies for
Overcoming Emotional Challenges
RENÉE WOLFS
FOREWORD BY MARLENE VAN STEENSEL
TRANSLATED BY KATE EATON
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information
in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding
that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other
professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required,
the services of a competent professional should be sought.
This translation of De Cirkel van Verbinding, omgaan met verlies bij adoptie en
pleegzorg, gids voor (jong)volwassenen is published by arrangement with Uitgeverij
Aspekt, Amersfoortsestraat 27, 3769 AD Soesterberg, The Netherlands.
English language edition first published in 2015
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
73 Collier Street
London N1 9BE, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Renée Wolfs 2015
Foreword copyright © Marlene van Steensel 2015
English language translation copyright © Kate Eaton 2015
Front cover image source: Thinkstock®. The cover image is for
illustrative purposes only, and any person featuring is a model.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and
whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication)
without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of
a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby
Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission
to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work
may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 555 0
eISBN 978 0 85700 988 3
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Our problem is not
that as children our needs were unmet
but that as adults they are still unmourned.
David Richo

Contents
Foreword by Marlene van Steensel 11
Acknowledgements 13
Introduction 15
Chapter 1 Coping with Loss 17
Processes of change 17
What is loss? 18
Social losses 19
Physical losses 20
Psychological losses 20
What is a mourning process? 21
What themes are involved in a mourning process? 23
Denial and disbelief; recognising the loss 23
Dealing with the pain, with the chaos of feelings and thoughts 24
Asking for support from those around you 24
Getting on with your life: fatigue, gloom 25
Saying farewell 26
Keeping memories alive 26
Who am I without the one or without what I’ve lost? 27
Giving meaning as the gate to a new chapter of life 27
Giving form to a new future 28
Postponed, accumulated and complicated grief 28
Postponed grief 28
Accumulated grief 30
Complicated grief 31
Trauma 31
Three factors that influence the mourning process 33
How intensely do you experience the loss? 33
How are you coping with the loss? 34
How much support are you getting from those around you? 36
Questions 37
Knowledge questions 37
Personal questions 38
Chapter 2 Mourning the Core Loss 39
Themes of loss in long-term foster placement and adoption 39
Children 41
Denial as a method of self-protection 41
Acute mourning after placement 43
BABIES AND TODDLERS 43
PRIMARY SCHOOL AGE 44
Existential insecurity in foster children 45
Episodic grief during primary school age 47
Adolescents (12–24 years old) 50
Denial as a method of self-protection 51
Episodic grief during adolescence 52
Adults 55
Denial as a method of self-protection 56
Episodic grief in adulthood 57
Life losses 59
Leaving home 60
Entering a lasting relationship 60
Having a baby 61
The death of a loved one 63
Abortion 64
Unfulfilled desire to have a baby 65
Factors that hinder the mourning process 66
Diminished stress regulation 66
Insufficient basic trust 67
Postponed, accumulated and complex grieving 68