Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care - 9781849055550

Author Ren<’e>e Wolfs, a counselor in The Netherlands, has written books on adoption and foster care. In this accessible guide for older teens and young adults, she gives background and advice for understanding, coping with, and moving on from feelings of grief, loss, anger, and other difficult emotions surrounding the experience of adoption and foster care. The first part of the book explains the mourning process of adoptees and foster children, noting that current life events, such as beginning and ending relationships, having children, or losing a loved one, can trigger feelings from the past and result in postponed grief, accumulated grief, and complicated grief. She also emphasizes the role of denial as a method of self-protection in childhood and adolescence. The second part of the book provides an original tool called the Circle of Connecting, offering reflection activities and daily practices encompassing body, mind, heart, environment, past, present, and future. The voices of real people shed light on the process throughout the book. A list of further reading recommends books on adoption, trauma and loss, rational emotive behavior therapy, autobiographical writing, mindfulness, breathing, health and stress reduction, acceptance and commitment theory, and systemic work and family constellations. The book is translated from Dutch by Kate Eaton. The book’s readership includes people who experienced adoption or foster care, as well as those supporting them, including adoptive and foster parents, social workers, counselors, and therapists. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)