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The Emotional Tasks of Moving from Fostering to Adoption: Transitions, Attachment, Separation and Loss

British Association of Psychotherapists, London, UK

The paradoxical emotional tasks involved for a child moving from fostering to adoption are discussed from two linked perspectives. Attachment theory highlights the fact that the child is being expected to form a new attachment to the adoptive family whilst often being in the grips of mourning the loss of the foster family. The author suggests that a significant amount of the anger and violence expressed by children such as these is the result of their suffering from ‘multiple traumatic loss’. Winnicott’s ideas about the potential of transitional experiences, phenomena and objects to offer a way of working with the painful paradox of simultaneous attachment and loss in as creative a way as possible, are illustrated. The three-year-old patient was referred for psychoanalytic psychotherapy to help him to cope as well as possible with his move from his loved foster home to his unknown adoptive home. The importance of facilitating a growing ability to play out in the therapy the intense feelings inevitably engendered, as opposed to acting them out in everyday life, is emphasized. It is argued that therapy offered during such difficult life transitions, if it can be thoughtfully contained by the professional network around the child can hold a significant therapeutic potential. The psychodynamics of the professional network surrounding the child are discussed in this context.

Key Words: fostering and adoption • life transitions • multiple traumatic loss • psychodynamics of the professional network • simultaneous attachment and loss • transitional objects and phenomena

Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 8, No. 3, 337-349 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/1359104503008003005


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