Adoption Issues

If you are adopted, it is likely the experience of being adopted is one of the most significant influences in your life. Many adults who were adopted as infants or young children, and were loved, accepted and valued by their adoptive families, still struggle with feelings of melancholy, grief and fear of loss, or are anxious about their capacity to belong, despite the experience of having loving adoptive parents and families. It seems that even with a wholesome family experience, the primal separation and loss that is a part of every adoption experience can fuel many anxieties in adoptees, especially fears of loss and abandonment and confusion about identity. Being adopted can influence a person throughout their lives. It is common for these influences to appear – or reappear. If you are seeking support to explore and process the impact of adoption in your life, having a therapist who understands both personally and professionally can be especially helpful. I'd like to help.

As an adoptive parent and counselor I understand the challenges faced in blending a family through adoption. I can work with you and your children on issues of grief and loss, identity formation, and attachment in blending your family.

As an adoptive parent and member of an extended birth family in reunion, I bring my own experiences and sensitivity to the task of providing adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth family members the support they need to tackle the complex issues inherent in adoption. I provide support groups, individual consultations on adoption-related issues, parenting coaching, and ongoing psychotherapy. I work primarily with teens and adults, both adoptees, first family and those parenting adopted children.

As adoptees, we know better than anyone that the impact of adoption lasts a lifetime. As an adoption competent therapist, and transracial adoptee myself, I know having better understanding the separation and loss caused by ambiguous losses of adoption, developmental trauma, and confusion about identity. Adoptees hear messages like, "you should be grateful" instead of holding space for the loss which can lead to anger, hopelessness, guilt, and isolation.

As a transracial adoptee myself, I have both the personal and professional knowledge of these issues. I know how unique the trauma is surrounding adoption and the questions it raises regarding identity.

I have significant training and experience in working with individuals who are on the permanency spectrum (foster care, kinship care, transfers of custody, and adoption). This includes parents who have adopted and fostered and adult adoptees. I believe that adoption and permanency are lifelong journeys that involve powerful emotions. Within this, I take a holistic and strengths-based approach to grief/loss and adoption concerns that empowers without guilt/shame.

I have a special passion for providing support and services to adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, resource parents and anyone from the foster, adoption and kinship circle. As an adoptee myself, it is an honor for me to be able to give back to the community I am also a part of. I have completed the Permanency and Adoption Competency Certification (PACC) and Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) training to become an adoption-competent therapist.

For 20 years I have worked with children and teens in foster care. I provide a trauma informed approach to care.

I have worked with multiple clients that have adoption stories. I also am adopted so working with this population is very close to home. I work with adoptees on re-discovering their identities and healing from their trauma.

I have additional training as well as personal experience with adoption. I have experience dealing with adoption from a variety of perspectives including the challenges associated with adopting or with placing a child for adoption.

I work with adopted and foster children, teens, and adults. I am an adoptee myself and have specialized training to serve this community from my participation in Portland State University's Foster and Adoption Therapy Certificate Program.

I have worked with adoption agencies in hospital settings as new mothers signed off their rights as parents to working with adolescents who transitioned from foster care to adoptive homes. I also have had clients of adult age learning to cope with what it has meant for them to be adopted.

I have completed the Center for Adoption Support and Education's accredited training in Adoption Competency program (TAC) and have supported adoptees of all ages and their families working on identity, grief and loss, and life transitions. In my work, I often support adoptees and their families going through the search and reunion process, processing trauma, and understanding neurodivergence.

As an adult adoptee, I bring insight and compassion into my work with members of the adoption triad. I utilize Attachment Theory and mindfulness to help clients build awareness of how adoption might be affecting relationship patterns and personal beliefs. I also have an interest in strengthening the adoption triad by processing individual losses and fears found in those roles and reframe those roles in support of the adoptee.

I have a special passion for providing support and services to adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, resource parents and anyone from the foster, adoption and kinship circle. As an adoptee myself, it is an honor for me to be able to give back to the community I am also a part of. I have completed the Permanency and Adoption Competency Certification (PACC) and Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) training to become an adoption-responsive/aware therapist.

Navigating the journey of adoption can bring unique emotional complexities for adoptees, biological parents, and adoptive families. In my practice, I offer a safe and understanding space to explore these intricacies. My therapeutic approach is tailored to each unique adoption story, always ensuring that every voice is heard and valued.

While working previously as a home study evaluator, I first became familiar with the interpersonal dynamics and adjustments that families encounter when deciding to grow their family by adoption. Since then, I've undergone additional training on adoption issues and read anything I can get my hands on related to adoption! I take an adoptee-centered approach and support adoptees in positive identity formation, exploring grief and loss, and bravely sharing their unique stories.

The impact of adoption comes up a different times throughout the lifetime - starting school, graduation, moving away, getting married, starting a family. As an adoption competent therapist, and transracial adoptee myself, I know having better understanding the separation and loss caused by ambiguous losses of adoption can be so painful. Adoptees hear messages like, "you should be grateful" instead of holding space for the loss which can lead to anger, hopelessness, guilt, and isolation.

Navigating the journey of adoption can bring unique emotional complexities for adoptees, biological parents, and adoptive families. In my practice, I offer a safe and understanding space to explore these intricacies. My therapeutic approach is tailored to each unique adoption story, always ensuring that every voice is heard and valued.

I have provided services to those in the world of adoption including a support group for foster and adoptive parents, helping bio sibs adjust to foster sibs being returned to their families and working with adoptive children and youth in mental health crisis. In addition, I am an adoptive mother of three all of whom were adopted at older ages.