Adoption

"It is not as if he was of us", said the adoptive mother. "One can understand one's own flesh and blood". What were the fears, disappointments and misunderstandings that underlay that remark? My work as a Psychiatric Social Worker involves interviewing parents of children attending the clinic and, during the last three years, remarks, such as that quoted, drew my attention to the special problems that adoptive parents have to face. This study has been made in order that future cases may be the more ably treated. It is restricted to adoptive as distinct from foster-parents in order to limit the field of study to cases in which there is no conscious fear that the child may be removed. The adoptive parents are referred to throughout as the mother and father and the prefix "real" is used to denote the natural mother and putative father. A survey of cases of adoption, seen between September 1949 and September 1952, showing numbers, ages, symptoms, diagnosis and clinic action and results is given in the Appendix.