Many ACP members work with looked after and adopted children and their families. Simon Cregeen, a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and member of the ACP, argues that whilst it’s important to support the adopted child, it’s also critical to consider the emotional experiences of adoptive parents too. The parents need to do their best to look after their relationship as a couple, not only for their own sake, but also because this is the most essential resource for their children.
He says: “A common feature in work with adoptive parents is the presence of shame and guilt, leading to blame being projected onto the other parental partner, or one or more of the adopted children. Shame is experienced in relation to the adoptive parents’ feeling that they are failing to match their internal, idealised standards of being parents, including being ‘much better ones’ than the birth parents.
"Difficulty with mourning is often a central concern for adoptive couples struggling with such issues. When couples are seeking to adopt due to childlessness, there are experiences of loss on the parental side, as well as the children’s. The cumulative traumatic loss for couples who have, for instance, lost babies or suffered multiple failed IVF attempts cannot be underestimated, nor the courage required, and difficulties encountered in mourning the loss of an imagined ordinary family experience.”
For example, parents can become divided in what they feel and think they should do as adoptive parents and as a couple. This can lead them to being unable to acknowledge one another’s point of view, which leads to conflict and blame. If the couple are able to recognise that this is happening, and observe and share what they are thinking and doing, this enables them share responsibility for the conflict, and they can become curious about their partner’s feelings, and the difference in these from their own. A bridge can be formed between their different emotional responses to the adoptive parenting experience they are having.