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Adoption is complex and adoptees are not monolithic. Whether you were adopted as an infant, as an older child, through foster care, transracially, or transnationally, we strive to hold these nuances in your story with deep care and attentiveness. You deserve a safe space to heal. All your thoughts and feelings are welcome here.
Too often, adoptive services focus their attention on the experience of the adoptive parents over the adoptees themselves. While we support all members of the adoption triad (adoptees, first/birth parents, adoptive parents), it is of deep importance to us to prioritize the lived experience of adoptees. You are the expert to your story and we are not going to have an agenda for you to feel a certain way about it.
It is disorienting to not have all the answers to your life story. You may look around and feel out of place among your peers or family but then feel overcome with guilt at the thought of sharing that feeling of loneliness with them. You may daydream about what your first family was like and how your life would have been had you grown up with them instead. You may be expecting your first child and find yourself suddenly hit with waves of grief as you remember your own experience of being in the womb.
It is challenging to navigate the pressure to be grateful while holding the nuance of mourning the loss of your first family and culture. It's not too much for us to be with both. We would be honored to support you in your process while honoring first parents, adoptive parents, and bonus/step parents.
While several of our clinicians are adoption-informed and culturally informed (and Tim is a transracial adoptee himself), we recognize there are limitations to our scope of care when it comes to supporting adoptees. Below is a directory of therapists who are adoptees themselves and passionate about providing care to fellow adoptees, as well as a supportive blog written by Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker, a trusted therapist colleague who is both a transracial adoptee and transracially adoptive parent herself.
Adoptee Therapist Directory
Adoptee Support Blog
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