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A path of family violence: from the family of origin to the adoptive family. The story of Akos

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Abstract

This piece of work illustrates how adoptive paths are often transformed into difficult and painful situations as the history of the family of origin of the adoptive child is unacknowledged and the traumatic situation that is often at the origin of the request for adoption is underestimated. As Alberto Eiguer states when he speaks of the unconscious reasons that can structure the request for adoption in the couple. “…They dream of finding a child who has lived a difficult situation in order to save him, but ignore the fact that they are reacting according to the trans-generational history of their family: abandonment and maltreatment could have been a past family reality.” (Eiguer, 2007). The adoption of Akos is inserted in a history of unknown violence, where maltreatment, abuse and abandonment are the only words which appear in the meagre/poor and superficial biography Read more

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Infertility treatment and the risk of drop-out of couples in a focus group research

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Abstract

Conceiving a child and start a family, constitute the deepest desire of each person and it is also an important stage of development by completing the psychosocial individual and marital identity. Numerous studies say that one of the main consequences of infertile couple, are individual and psychological problems. This can lead to the onset of possible states of depression, anxiety, social isolation, sense of incompetence, and also may result psychosomatic disorders. This negative state can involve different areas of life, also at work and interpersonal relationships, furthermore of couple’s life, and such as the sexual area (Cousineau, Domar, 2007; Costa, Nazzaro, 2008; Righetti, Galluzzi, Maggino, Baffoni, Azzena , 2009).
Modern techniques in assisted reproduction treatment (ART) can be a good solution to the problem of infertility. To note is that these procedures can create a very high emotional charge with the feeling of lose of control regard intimate sphere and the sense of intrusiveness in different areas of the person both physical and psychological. Stress and too high tension, often can induce couples to abandon treatment prematurely, the so-called drop-out phenomenon. The rate of drop-out in pairs can be up about 60% (Schroder, Katalinic, Diedrich, Ludwig, 2004). It’s necessary to understand more about this high rate of drop-out and to try to prevent or at least restrict this phenomenon as well as possible. The support of couples during this process should also be considered. Read more

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Juno, Claire, Camille: How cinema recounts the experience of pregnancy in adolescents

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Abstract

The paper proposes, through the analysis of three films, “Juno”, “Brodeuses” (The embroiderers) and “17 girls”, some reflections on the difficulties of the encounters of adolescents with their own generating capacity. The pregnancies arise from profoundly different contexts and deals with the uncomfortable relationship in becoming a woman that seems to be connected with the difficulties encountered in connection with a mother experienced as unable to fulfil a supporting role.
Motherhood is seen in some cases as an attempt to get out of this difficultly entwined relationship full of strongly felt unresolved problems and unsatisfied needs in which the pregnancies are called upon to fill, in others, a difficulty of representation in the somatic psychic is expressed. This aspect shows the difficulty of facing the changes in ones own body and its new potential, which are tested on the unconscious level during pregnancy.
The films also speak of the difficulty encountered in the becoming of women and mothers when the fathers are fleeing from their function of separating elements of the mother daughter couple Read more

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The birth of the ability to narrate

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Abstract

I’m going to describe the appearance of an ability to narrate in the case of an adopted child with autistic traits. This capability has become possible, in my opinion, first of all following the late internal experience of the continuity of existence, closely linked to the experience of those sensory envelopes usually provided to infants by primary maternal care, which contribute to the construction of a body self. Despite her rejection of any kind of narrative, the adoptive parents have been able to tell her true story, accepted by her without any apparent problems. Within the psychotherapeutic relationship she could later recognize and process the Read more

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Adoptive parenting and group space

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Abstract

Through an analysis of the experience of working with groups of adoptive parents, this paper highlights that the real reason behind their more general request for help is actually the need to work through their decision to adopt, their difficulty in accepting a family identity without biological roots, and the uncertainty concerning their child’s affective attachment, which is potentially threatened by the phantasms of his biological parents.

The use of a “group” allowed the parents to fuse a “gnostic” with a “practical” approach, that of rational knowledge with emotive feeling, in order to rediscover  a wholeness of the self through good Read more

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Couple dynamics and adoptive parent relationships

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Abstract

This paper aims to explore some of the aspects involved in the dynamics of the interaction between narcissism and object investment. We know that the oscillation between these two psychic configurations influences the subject and his relations: the dynamics of his couple and his role as a parent. We feel that within the emotional complexity of adoptive parenthood, primary importance must be given to the “adoption” of aspects of the self and of the relationship that have been split off and projected outside that self and relationship.
We describe some episodes from a couple psychotherapy treatment using the concept of the analytic field, with reference to developments suggested by post-Bionian models in individual psychoanalysis. We refer to the field that is created in a joint session where the different subjects come together, forming a continuous Read more

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The fragility of the links in the adoptive family: is it a terminable or interminable adoption?

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Abstract

In Italy the Social and Health Services have seen an increase in the number of reports of adoptive families in crisis. The reports involve teenagers adopted mostly from Eastern Europe in the early 90s who have experienced significant mental suffering. Through a case study of Family Psychoanalytic Therapy the authors analyze the specific qualities of the adoptive link as an original and specific version of the filial and consanguine link. The hypothesis put forward is that the adoptive family has its syncretic foundation in a “link of alienness” and that processing this link becomes central to resolving the family crisis. The authors highlight the central stages Read more

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The adopted child and his double origin

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Abstract

In order to highlight the persistence of a double connection of the adopted child with the family of origin as well as with the new adoptive bonds (e.g., Brodzinsky, Schechter, Marantz Henig, 1992), two clinical cases are presented in this work: The first one regards a young woman who was adopted in early childhood through national adoption; the second one regards two adoptive parents dealing with the grief involved by the distancing of their adopted son when he becomes a young adult. This double connection tends to persist over the life of the adopted child even though one of the two poles, or both, might seem to “disappear” from the subjective and relational experience of the adopted person and his adoptive family; in fact, these two dimensions inevitably reemerge through time with different paths for each individual. On a psychic level, the adoption is situated for all protagonists in Read more

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Meeting Elsewhere. The Group in Adoption

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Abstract

In this article, after brief considerations of the characteristics of the “towards and beyond adoption” formative path and after a personal testimony that wishes to give voice to the children met in several institutions in the Ukraine, the consequences of the trauma of abandonment are commented on. There follows a taking under examination group modality that can be productively utilized in the sphere of the process of adoption, in all its phases with various actors on the adoption path.
In particular, we examine more closely the group applied to post adoption, in its value as facilitative setting of “elsewhere”. This “elsewhere” is a place far away in which the ch Read more

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Attachment models in late-adopted children end their adoptive mothers: a clinical example

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Abstract

Attachment Theory highlighted the role of secure adoptive mothers in affecting the revision of late-adopted children’s Internal Working Models respect to attachment (Steele, Hodges, Kaniuk, Hillman, Henderson, 2003; Pace, Zavattini, D’Alessio, 2012). Starting from a theoretical discussion on the importance of the quality of parenting, caregiving and reflective capacities of adoptive mothers, a discussion of a case of a child adopted at the age of six years was presented. The mother and her child were seen two times after six months of each other. During the first observation, at the time of adoption, the Separation-Reunion Procedure was administered to the child and the Adult Attachment Interview and Reflective Function Scale were administered to her mother. At the second step, the Separation-Reunion Procedure and the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task were administered to t Read more

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Adoption and same-sex parenting: Oedipus abandoned?

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Abstract

Although substantial research has demonstrated that children of lesbian and gay parents develop in ways that are similar to those of heterosexual parents, families with lesbian and gay parents remain controversial. We know that most adopted children have a history of abandonment. In this paper, which is necessarily brief, we reflect on the possibility that children adopted by gay or lesbian couples have to face more difficulties than those adopted by heterosexual couples. The subject is delicate and complex since it involves not only responsible adults, but also children who have to reconstruct their belonging, work out the loss of their biological parents, and establish new attachment relationships. After reading the adoptive theme in the light of Oedipus’ myth, which is a myth of abandonment and adoption, we consider the oedipal complex in the light of same-sex parenting. Finally, we ask: “What is in the best interest of the child?”

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Joining Families: the adopted child, the internal group, and the process of assimilation

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Abstract

In this paper I describe how the inner world of the late-adopted child is peopled with a pre-existing group of birth parents and previous carers. The task of adoptive parents is to assimilate this previously internalised group into the adoptive family. I explore some of the difficulties that can interfere with Read more

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Adoption, a filial -affiliation

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Abstract

There are many myths and tales telling of the often impressive destiny of adopted children who seem to benefit from new alliances. In clinic we often hear other stories where abandonment anxiety and narcissistic wounds are predominant.
The adopted child endures two symbolic processes founding his singular subjectivity: the original narcissistic contract which links him to his original group and ensures the transmission of psychical life; the secondary narcissistic contract which fits and involves him into the new family filiation. So that adoption does not become exile, the establishment of a new alliance and the understanding between the new psychic life and the Read more

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Duplicity and illusion in families formed by international adoption

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Summary

“Duplicity and illusion in international adoption.” New family compositions created by international adoption grow hand in hand with globalization. Beyond the socio-economic or political implications, the author focuses on the psychological processes at work in these families. Duality of countries, cultures and families, associated with the intensity of the needs and demands involved, induce multiple distortions of reality promoting deception. In the light of two examples of international adoption, one drawn from literature, the other from a psychoanalytic family therapy, he studies the emergence of fantasies and representations in connection with deception and mystification. Considering their hidden effects detrimental to the creation of new Read more

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Editorial Groups for Adoptions

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The term adoption refers to social events in which the law “creates” new family contexts and ratifies new affiliations according to the often greatly differing practices of diverse regions and time scales. All too often the background to an adoption is muddled and confused; even when there have not been any misadventures or drastic separations involved, still many puzzles remain to be solved (Cyrulnik, 2009). Each character in this adventure may give quite a different meaning to his or her experience.
In this issue our aim has been to allow these different perspectives to emerge, in order to develop new ideas and to outline new theoretical and clinical ways of critically examining the subject of adoption.
We have tried to take as broad and encompassing a view as possible, from different vantage points, in an attempt to present a group experience that we hope will give rise to creative dialogue between the different ways of regarding the subject. Read more