Counseling Center for the Adoption Family

Consultation

Pre-adoption counseling can be beneficial to individuals and couples who are considering creating a family through adoption. Adoption can arouse many ideas, feelings, fantasies and expectations that may be conflictual for individuals and couples and by talking these issues out and understanding them you can gain clarity and acceptance which can reduce stress and conflict and help facilitative success growth.

Post-adoption services can be very helpful though the need for it may not present itself until your child reaches grade school when new views about adoption are possible developmentally. Post adoption services can help a family at that time with a wide range of newly emerging issues such helping a child understand and integrate feelings of confusion and anger about adoption,  explaining adoption to the child, helping with adoption-related developmental problems and helping with identity issues in adolescence and young adulthood.

Loss, grief and anger can be a normal feeling experienced by most adoptees. These feelings may appear, disappear, and then return at different times in the child's development.  Trust and attachment are two other areas that can be problematic especially for children who are placed from foster care or children who have experienced abuse, neglect, or institutionalization prior to joining their adoptive families.  Identity issues are faced by every child but can be especially troublesome for adopted children and for adoptees of other races and cultures.

Certain dates and experiences may trigger adoption related issues.  This is especially true of birthdays, holidays, pregnancy within the family or of a family friend, the adoption or birth of a "sibling", and contacts from the birth mother or birth father.  School problems and school related issues can arise around classroom assignments (such as traditional "family tree" assignments or basic genetic lessons), peer interactions, and insensitivity on the part of school personnel. 

Dealing with these types of problems and others in a  timely manner with help from a skilled counselor or therapist can often prevent an initial problem from becoming more serious.  It can also help a family and adoptee to understand what problems are the result of everyday life and what problems may be related specifically to adoption issues.

 The Counseling  Center for The Adoption Family provides consultations to help clarify issues and to identify options available to help with the resolution of those issues. We will work with your support services- therapists, schools, residential treatment centers etc.-to identify and understand  the developmental issues that are unique to the individual, couple, family; child and teen. We will help formulate a plan to help you achieve your goals. Consultations can be conducted on the phone when in-person meetings are difficult to arrange