An Exploration of Whether Searching for Birth Origins Can Lead to Post-Traumatic Growth in Adult Adoptees

Abstract

Adoption is a lifelong process in which adoptees have to incorporate their adoptive status into their sense of identity throughout their lives. It is a developmental trauma which impacts adoptees on many levels. This study uses poetic inquiry to consider whether adult adoptees from the closed adoption system in England and Wales have experienced post traumatic growth following a search for their birth origins. Following semi-structured interviews with the participants, found poems were created of their experiences of being adopted and searching for their birth origins. As an adoptee who has searched, I provide a reflexive response to the poems and have used the heuristic processes of indwelling and focusing to provide greater insight into the meaning of my own creative writing undertaken throughout my own search and this research. The aims of this research are firstly to establish whether searching for birth origins can lead to post traumatic growth in adoptees, and if this is the case, then secondly, how does the search lead to post traumatic growth. I have taken an interpretivist approach in order to understand the subjective experience of adoptees, together with how historical and cultural influences have impacted their experience. In creating the found poetry, I considered the whole life experience of the participants as adoptee, from growing up adopted, deciding to search, the search process and after the search. This provides a narrative poetic approach and has allowed an exploration of adoption narratives and how these change and adapt during and following the search in order to provide a more coherent sense of self. There are four overarching themes that arose from the poems, and these provide an overview of the whole experience of adoptees. The themes are anger/rage; connections/roots; identity; and authenticity. The research demonstrates that adoptees are given incoherent and illogical adoption narratives that they have to incorporate into their sense of self. Social and cultural narratives around adoption make it difficult for adoptees to challenge these. In searching for birth origins, adoptees can challenge the narratives given to them both by their adoptive families and by wider society and reframe them to provide a more coherent sense of self. This in turn leads to a greater sense of well-being and allows them to find meaning in their experience.