Adoption is a wonderful and unique experience. Not many people know what it is like, whether it is a birth parent, adoptive parent, or an adoptee.
If you consider an adoptee's perspective, you will understand the difficulties related to explaining the adoption process to someone else. Even more complex is managing the long-lasting emotions and memories you are left with.
Professional adoption therapy can be of great help in this context. A skilled and experienced adoption-competent therapist can help you cope with the issues and discover opportunities for healing and growth.
However, that can happen only when you find the right adoption therapist. To ensure you make a fruitful decision, we share a few things you must know about adoption-competent therapists. But before that, let's glance at a few basics!
What is Adoption Competency Therapy?
An adoptee requires time and space to explore and learn his/her identity, biological relations, and other aspects. They desire a peaceful space and environment where they can delve into themselves and understand their past and existing circumstances.
Adoption competency therapy deals with this aspect and provides the necessary support to the adoptee to tackle the process. It is specialized guidance offered by an adoption-competent therapist to help an adoptee find himself and improve his life.
Why is an Adoption-Competent Therapist Important?
Adoption-competent therapists are professionals with the relevant training, experience, education, and expertise to effectively treat adoptees impacted by adoption. They work compassionately and create space to support you in exploring your emotions and beliefs, which is essential to take actions that improve your life.
Birthparents, adoptees, adoptive families, and adoptive parents can benefit from the open mind of the therapist. These experts are skilled in tackling adoption-related issues, particularly self-perception, relationship building, and thinking.
An informed specialist efficiently handles your trauma and feelings. It helps you explore your layers of self-identity to make it easier for you to build connections.
Hence, to ensure your adoption therapist can manage your condition well, you must know a few important things about them.
Things You Must Know About an Adoption Therapist
1. They Hold Relevant Certifications to Practice as a Therapist
Don't consider an adoption therapist as a generic counselor. These are specialized professionals who are certified to practice adoption competency therapy.
Adoption is an intricate process and can leave long-lasting effects on everyone involved. The therapist provides the nuanced support adoption triad members require. For this, they must complete accredited training in handling trauma-based adoption issues.
The certification/training includes distinct aspects, such as
Attachment Theories
Loss & Grief
Child Development
Trust-Based Relational Intervention
Trauma-Specific Relational Intervention
Racial Identity Models
Attachment-friendly Discipline
2. They Have Different Approaches to Tackle Adoption-Specific Trauma
An adopted child can experience distinct traumas related to the process. For managing such trauma, the therapist may follow one or a combination of several approaches, such as:
These experts hold the knowledge and skills required to guide the patients. They help discover the differences between adoption-related and non-adoption effects to encourage healing in their patients.
It means they don't directly relate a challenge to the adoption, as it could be for any other reason. Instead, they use their training to explore these two categories' differences and execute proper therapy approaches.
3. They Assess a Child's History and Adoptive Family Background for Complexities
An adoption therapist does not assume a poor relationship between an adoptive parent and a child is always the result of existing family dynamics. It evaluates the level of attachment a child has with his adoptive parents.
Children who have suffered trauma, abused, or spent time in foster care or orphanages, are not attached to their parents like kids who haven't experienced such things. The therapist assesses the child's early history and the adoptive parent's attachment style.
The analyses include an evaluation of harmful prenatal alcohol, starvation, and drug exposures as an infant. They do not assume a child's misbehavior is willful disobedience but because of a brain injury and early childhood adverse experiences. They assess the child for relinquishment trauma, a kind of developmental trauma.
4. They Counsel Not Just Adoptees, But Also Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Families
Though most of the trauma relates to the adoptee, even the birthparent and adoptive parents can suffer from mental and emotional conflicts. Birthparents are not aware of where to go for support. They require a safe space where they can learn to deal with the loss and grief associated with the placement.
The good thing is that adoption therapists have experience in working with birth parents and adoptive families. They use positive adoption language and can work with families in adoption, which are open, closed, or in reunion. They specialize in trauma, PTSD, grief, and handling all adoption-related issues.
These specialists understand the pain of the birthparents and understand their decision. They provide the necessary tools to help manage their emotions and mental well-being. The therapists offer birth parents a space where they are not judged and have zero stigmas attached.
5. They Possess Specific Qualifications to be Considered as An Adoption Therapist
Not every therapist or counselor you meet in the adoption center can be considered an adoption therapist. A series of qualifications is mandatory to enter into this profession.
Adoption therapists possess the knowledge, values, and skills to support all members involved in the adoption process. They understand the creation of a family through this process and determine not just the members have varying experiences and complexity, but each family has different experiences and complexities.
They know that adoption is not an event but a process. These therapists are capable and knowledgeable of using an extensive range of therapies and aim to help people heal, support family relationships, and empower the members involved.
Schedule an Appointment with CASE’s Adoption-Competent Therapists
Most of the time, birth parents and adoptive parents fail to advocate the red flags in their children till they reach adolescence, and the difficulty becomes unmanageable. An adoptive-competent therapist is armed with the experience, skill, knowledge, and qualification required to detect and manage this trauma. They provide proactive support to families and can help in avoiding serious consequences. If you or your child is experiencing trauma, consult the reliable adoption therapists at the Center for Adoption Support and Education, Virginia, today.
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