As another National Adoption Week approaches here in the UK, I've been reflecting on adoption and what I believe is still a missing piece of the conversation. I write this both as an adoptee and as a therapist who works with adult adoptees, perspectives that have shaped not only my understanding of adoption, but also my appreciation of its lifelong impact.
Unless you have experienced growing up outside of your birth parents, whether through adoption, kinship care, special guardianship or foster care, it is very difficult to understand the full impact that separation can have on the nervous system and developing brain, and the lifelong implications that can follow.
Each situation will have its own set of challenges and impacts on the child, but the one thing they all have in common is, for a child to grow, develop and mature away from the person who grew and birthed them falls outside the biological conditions that human evolution has prepared them to expect.
Human infants are biologically wired to attach to their primary caregiver and that attachment begins in utero. If we can agree that is the baseline, then regardless of grown up’s feelings around the situation, we can agree that special care and consideration needs to be given to any child who is in a situation that falls outside of that inbuilt, hardwired physiological process.
I’m not here to advocate for children to always stay with their birth parent/s, in some cases there is clearly no other safe option (although I do think there is much our governments and society could do to ensure more and more often that birth parents are the best and safest option, but I’ll save that for another time!). What I want to advocate for is the recognition and understanding that removing a child from their birth parent/s has an undeniable impact on that child from a physiological and neurological perspective.
Being placed within an emotionally secure adoptive family and them recognising, and committing to, the life long work that is needed to fully support an adopted child, can go a long way in counteracting some of these negative impacts. But we need to accept that no matter how loving and well-intentioned the adoptive family, or whoever it is who is going to step in to the primary caring role for the child, the child has experienced a profound rupture in the attachment relationship they were biologically prepared to rely upon.
Many like to argue that when a child is young, they can’t possibly know what is happening and are effectively a ‘blank slate’. I would argue that separation happening before a child can speak and think and articulate for themselves can add a further layer of complication as they grow older. They are grappling with something they have no cognitive recollection of, but which has nevertheless left a lasting imprint on their body and nervous system. Babies are hardwired for survival and the key component in that survival is to attach to whoever birthed them. They are the smell, sound and warmth that they have been enveloped in for 9 months, sharing that person’s bodily systems, their blood, their DNA. That person, whom they have not yet laid eyes on, is all they know, and they are hardwired to know that this person is key to their survival. Whilst we can’t know for sure how an infant experiences separation, we do know that prolonged separation from a primary attachment figure activates stress responses in the infant. It’s not hard to imagine the fear of being separated from your life source, and despite all your very best, and increasingly desperate attempts to call them back, they never come. Anyone who has ever been in what felt like a life threatening situation will know what it feels like to have your body flooded with adrenaline and cortisol. Imagine that impact on a baby, for a sustained period of time, as it desperately searches for its only known source of comfort and survival.
Whether we care to acknowledge it or not, at its heart, the first experience of adoption for the child is loss.
Loss can be experienced as grief, whether conscious or unconscious. When a child's nervous system is overwhelmed by separation and it has no way of making sense of what has happened, grief can become trauma. It is from this place that many adoptees and care-experienced people begin to navigate the world, carrying not only the impact of what happened, but also the lifelong work of understanding how it has shaped their attachment, identity, relationships and sense of belonging. To grow up in an environment and/or society that fails to recognise or acknowledge the potential and far-reaching impacts of separation from birth parents, only serves to hinder the adoptee or care-experienced person further. There is often a sense that something isn't quite right, yet those around them may minimise or dismiss those feelings, leading them to believe there is something wrong with them.
Adoption is often spoken about as a singular event that happens on one day.
For the adoptee, however, adoption is a lifelong experience.
The questions, losses, identity struggles, loyalties and grief can evolve throughout childhood, adolescence, adulthood and parenthood and beyond.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. By recognising and acknowledging the many possible impacts of children living outside of their birth parent/s, we can then start to build a life long support system that is embedded into homes, social services, schools, higher education and beyond. I know many will argue that there is no funding to provide this kind of support. I would counter that: if the government provides more funding and better support services in early years for adopted and cared for children, along with their families and carers, you significantly lessen financial impact on essential services such as the NHS and the criminal justice system later down the line. Research has consistently found elevated rates of mental health difficulties, neurodivergence, addiction and suicide risk amongst care-experienced and adopted populations, along with overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.
Like many forms of loss and grief, these feelings do not necessarily ever fully disappear, even with support. But from my own personal experience and through that of my work with adoptees from many different backgrounds, even just starting to acknowledge that there has been a negative impact can be transformational. Over time you can start to make sense of how your own individual story, circumstances and environment have shaped you. Therapy can help you to understand why you may respond to people or situations in certain ways and start to identify sensations in your body and what they are trying to tell you. As a child you will have developed and adapted amazing ways to try and keep yourself emotionally safe, but those same adaptions may now be holding you back or doing you harm. Therapy is a space to explore those patterns and with the right support, develop healthier ways of being.
There are many different types of therapeutic support available depending on your own individual needs and what feels accessible to you and where you are in your journey. Some options to explore could include talking therapies, somatic work, breathwork, meditation, nature-based work, EMDR and Emotional Freedom Techniques/Tapping. Sometimes it is a combination of approaches that proves most helpful. Personally, I have explored a number of different forms of support at various points in my life. One of the most powerful things I have learnt along the way is to trust my own body and instincts around what I need to heal and feel safe.
Whatever you decide is right for you, I would just really encourage you to look into the person you are thinking of working with. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about what qualifies them to be able to support you and ensure they are competent in this area. There are some very well-meaning people out there who can unintentionally cause harm because they do not understand the additional complexities of working with adoptees and those from care-experienced backgrounds.
This National Adoption Week, I would like to suggest to all those without lived experience of adoption or care that they hold in mind two important truths: whilst some children will sadly always need alternative care arrangements, separation from birth parents can carry profound neurological, physiological and emotional consequences that deserve lifelong understanding and support.
Emma Groves (MBACP)
Adoptee and Attachment-based Integrative Therapist
www.evolve-well.co.uk