Customer Reviews

Adoption Healing ...a path to recovery

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Adoption Healing...a path to recovery, more than anything else gives HOPE to those of us who have traveled the adoption path, particularly adoptees and birthparents. Having been told in 1966 that by giving up my infant son to be adopted by people who could give him what I could not...a two parent home, a name, even legitimacy; I tried hard to believe when they told me I was doing the most loving thing a mother could do for her child in my circumstance. I was an 18 year old student with no husband in sight. I don't know if they really believed when they said I would get on with my life and I would forget this whole unfortunate experience and that I would go on to have plenty of other children.

Joe Soll's book speaks to the fact that THEY were really, really WRONG! You never forget and you really can't even totally get on with your life on some levels. Giving a child up for adoption is a very deep trauma and tragedy for a woman, and many can't even survive it. It's a form of soul-rape. While Joe gives exercises, tools and rituals to adoptees to understand their experience and even begin to heal; he also validates and acknowledges the pain and deep sense of grieving and loss the birthmothers live with. And although I have read several women authors who have written very eloquently about birthmother pain; this is the first male author that I've read who has deep understanding, wisdom and empathy for US. My heart was in my throat during much of this book, but I also felt that Adoption Healing should be required reading for Adoptees and Birthmothers, AND those who love us. This is an excellent and very well written book.

I am thrilled someone has finally written a book that directly deals with self-help treatment for the adopted person. Adoption Healing explains the psychological processes an adopted person goes through in their life, and the effect on him or her. It then gives simple exercises to help overcome the trauma of adoption. Even in a loving supportive adoptive family, the adoptee has suffered from the trauma of separation from his or her birthmother and family of origin.

An adoption search and reunion is only part of the process necessary for those who were separated from their birthfamily to heal. This book helps in completing the healing process. Unfortunately, those affected by an adoption need to work on their issues through self-help support groups and books as there are very few mental health professionals who understand the affect of the adoption experience on the adopted person and birthmother. This book helps fill that gap.

Adoption Healing is not just for adoptees. Birthparents and adoptive parents can learn a great deal about what their child has endured through adoption, and ways in which they can help their child, whether a youngster or adult. Therapists can develop a treatment protocol for their adopted clients.

I have been waiting for a book like this since I started working with adoptees and birthmothers 14 years ago as a post-adoption emotional support group leader. It will help me help others.

Additionally, it will help me deal with my own trauma of being adopted at birth in 1950. Although, my reunion is years past (and a "good" one), I plan to go back through the book chapter by chapter and do the exercises. Just a quick read has already begun to effect my emotions.

Joe Soll has captured the true essense of the inner workings of an adoptee and I say this from personal experience. On my journey in search of self, I have read many books on adoption, but unitl now, I couldn't find a book which did more than describe the experience of the adoptee. Joe Soll not only provided me with a great deal of insight into how my adoption experience shaped and defined the person I am, he provided me with the tools I needed to heal the hurt deep within my soul. His insightful and sensitively written work provides the reader with a very positive and helpful interactive experience. His method of exploration with the reader is experiential in nature, therapeutic in effect and his beliefs are based upon his vast experience working with adoptees as well as his own personal life experiences and is clearly a must read for all members of the adoption triad. I recommend this book highly!

personal experience. On my journey in search of self, I have read many books on adoption, but until now, I couldn't find a book which did more than describe the experience of the adoptee. Joe Soll not only provided me with a great deal of insight into how my adoption experience shaped and defined the person I am, he provided me with the tools I needed to heal the hurt deep within my soul. His insightful and sensitively written work provides the reader with a very positive and helpful interactive experience. His method of exploration with the reader is experiential in nature, therapeutic in effect and his beliefs are based upon his vast experience working with adoptees as well as his own personal life experiences. Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery is clearly a must read for all members of the adoption triad. I recommend this book highly!

Adoption Healing ... A Path to Recovery presents plain facts that explain how and why adoptees develop psychologically into who they are today. Practical advice is given to help change the way the experience of losing their mothers affects them in their everyday lives. The author is clear, concise and shows great insight into the psyche of adopted people. This book is for everyone whose life has been personally touched by adoption as well as mental health professionals who want to be able to work with adoptees. A truly remarkable book!

Adoption Healing will set those who read it free: Free from having their experience invalidated. Free from the shackles of societies view that in adoption, everyone wins. Free from the denial of the need to grieve one's losses. What Joe Soll has done is given all those involved in adoption the reality of the losses inherent in the separation of mother and child and how this plays out in every adoption situtation. As Anna Freud stated, "The horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother" and clearly the horros of war pale beside the loss of a child.

Adoption Healing presents the experience of the child from the womb through adulthood, eplaining the pain, anger and sadness inherent in adopted people, why it is repressed from consciousness, and how to finally deal with these emotions and roadblocks to happiness and finally be free to live rather than just exist.

This book is valuable for any adopted person, birthparent, adoptive parent, mental health professional or anyone interested in the truth about the adoptee experience.

Mental Health Professionals, Adoptees, Birthparents and Adoptive Parents have raved about this wonderful book for good reason.
It will set you free and I highly recommend it.

Even if you had a wonderful adoption experience (admittedly, I didn't), adoption brings with it certain issues throughout life. It's about time people realized that the adoption DOES NOT end when the court papers are signed. I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be a middle ground in adoption - adoptees either had a very good experience or a very bad experience, when all we ever wanted was a normal life. Adoption takes part of your normality away when it happens. Should be required reading for prospective adoptive parents, to help them deal with the unique needs of their adopted children

"Adoption Healing...a Path to Recovery" describes the trauma and psychological milestones encountered by every adoptee who was relinquished by birthparents and then adopted into a second family unit. The descriptions validate the feelings of adoptees, helping them to understand that they are not overly reacting to the circumstances surrounding their adoption. Adoptees' feelings and attitudes are not out-of-proportion to the trauma occurring in their lives.

"Fracturing" is the term used to describe the point in time where the adoptee realizes he or she has been cast into a universal black hole, between families, and never having a relationship in which one's authentic (the birth or core self) self is validated. Symptoms of fracturing are rage, anxiety, frustration, confusion, regret, feat, and so forth.

Soll guides his readers through their feelings, helping them to be aware of their emotions. He talks about channeling the anger into appropriate avenues and learning how to relax with visualization techniques. All adults are a consoliation of every day we have ever existed. There is a one-year-old, a seven-year-old and a 17-year-old inside each of us. This book helps us to get in touch with the parts of ourselves that were hurting at whatever the age. Called "inner child work," these techniques allow us to validate ourselves, affirming for every age that we were lovable and authentic human beings.

The title of this book, "Adoption Healing...a Path to Recovery" has not been mis-named. It is a breakthrough for adoptees and anyone in the triad or helping professions who want to understand the core issues that drive all adoptees.

Of all the adoption books I have read, Adoption Healing goes to the heart of the matter....The truth hurts and Soll pulls no punches. He has taken John Bradhaw's Inner Child work and modified it to help adopted people heal their wounds. He explains the mother/child bond that begins before birth in a very clear fashion and goes on to show how the effects of separation from one's mother at birth radiate through the psychological development of the adoptee and what can be done to help the adoptee deal with the pain of this loss.

I've gone to many adoption support groups over the years and heard many adoptees argue that they had no loss, become angry at those who do acknowledge the loss. Adoption Healing thoroughly explains why so many adoptees deny their pain, just as victims of sexual abuse have to deny the existence of their experience to survive.

If you have been affected by adoption and want to really understand the psychology of the adoptee, this book is for you.
It validated my adoption experience and has helped validate the experience of many of my adopted friends as well.

"Adoption Healing -- a path to recovery" is a book that deals with truth -- not the way people would prefer to see it, but exactly the way it is. Not only does it validate those feelings of doubt, fear,anxiety and loss that so many adoptees and birth mothers feel, but it gives you ways and exercises to help you deal with those feelings. I strongly suggest that everyone read it. It will help you to understand yourself, your sister or brother, your child, your partner or spouse.