Adoption: Uncharted Waters [Paperback]

David Kirschner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2006

Examines adoption issues of abandonment, loss, rejection, attachment, bonding, birth-parent fantasies & split-identity; as reflected in the Adopted Child Syndrome (ACS) and evidenced in extreme cases of adoptees who commit acts of homicide. Clinical and forensic issues in adoption are explored in high-profile cases.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Very powerful. It is good to have a clear syndrome named and legitimized. The case histories were lucidly written and whilst the sample is small and a clear minority of adoptees, the analysis of why some adoptions go so badly wrong is terrific. Once again, many thanks David" --Anthony Douglas, Chief Executive of CAFCASS, England and Chair of BAAF, UK (British Association for Adoption & Fostering) writes of Adoption: Uncharted Waters, 12/30/2006

"A must read. I found the book interesting, intriguing and well-supported by well-known members of the adoption community." --Adoption Today Magazine, August/September, 2006.

"Kirschner brings attention to the concept of Adopted Child Syndrome, which is bred through lies and fantasies about birth parents." --Fostering Families Today Magazine, July/August, 2006.

About the Author

David Kirschner, PhD., is a psychologist and psychoanalyst with a private practice in Merrick & Woodbury, Long Island, N.Y. He founded and directed for 25 years, a community mental health clinic - the Nassau Center for Psychotherapy. Dr. Kirschner is nationally and internationally recognized for his clinical & forensic work on adoption issues, and for his concept of an Adopted Child Syndrome. He has lectured widely, appeared on many radio and TV shows, and has often been an expert witness, in high-profile adoption cases. Most recently, Dr. Kirschner testified in Toronto, on the need to open sealed adoption records for Canada's adoptees.

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Juneau Press (September 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970288336
• ISBN-13: 978-0970288332
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lethal Lies and Fatal Fantasies: The Explosion of Cumulative Trauma of Rejection, May 25, 2007

By 

Mirah Riben "SilverDove" (East Coast) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adoption: Uncharted Waters: A Psychologist's Case Studies. . . Clinical and Forensic Issues, With Practical Advice for Adoptees, Parents and Therapists (Hardcover)

Uncharted Waters is chilling and compelling and an important contribution to those interested in adoption. It invites its readers to explore the abysmal pit of worst-case scenario adoptions in terms of harm caused by adoptees as opposed to to them.

Why go there? What is Kirschner's purpose in dredging up these tales horrendous true crimes and the criminals who committed them? Is he a bleeding heart seeking to exonerate murderers by testifying on their behalf and writing their stories?

No more and no less than many have done in other similar situations: explore violent deviant behaviors that fit a pattern in an effort to find a causal connection that could be remediated. Writing with understanding and compassion, for those who committed heinous acts as well as society, Dr. Kirschner's goal is to prevent future pain and suffering.

Did adoption make them do it? No more than high school created the Columbine slaughters. Did secrets and lies about their origins, and feelings of abandonment contribute? Yes, just as teasing and taunting did for the Columbine shooters.

While the initial separation at birth - the "primal wound" is perhaps the foundation of creating Kirschner's identified cluster of behaviors known as Adopted Child Syndrome, it is clear that it is the conscious knowing of having been "given away" - rejected - that is at the heart of adoption pain and angst, and that it is exacerbated by secrets and lies about the reason for this early abandonment.

Yet, most adoptees deal with it all in socially acceptable ways: denial, people pleasing, rejecting-avoidance behaviors, self-directed anger/depression, or mild acting out within - or just pushing the limits of - legal and social limits.

So what makes some go "over the edge" into a dissociative disorder - the basis of his testimony in all the cases - not ACS? Kirschner is very much a realist and clearly agrees with Sarnoff Medick, whom he quotes as saying: "Natural-born killer may be created when both nature and nurture conspire to rob infants of two fundamental birthrights: a loving mother and a normal brain."

In each of the case studies in this book adoptees lost their first mothers. A few spent time in foster care and suffered an additional abandonment experience early in life. One was physically and emotionally abused. Four had the added burden of a biological sibling. One had an adopted sibling who was successfully reunited. Most experienced feelings of rejection in their dating and/or married lives. Two experienced having a child of theirs aborted (one had two girlfriends abort). One experienced the death of a parent - by suicide - another abandonment/rejection creating experience.

But the one common denominator of all of these adopted men whose rage turned to murder was the fact that all were lied to outright or by omission about their original parents and the reason they were relinquished fro adoption, and all had their adoption loss issues invalidated and ignored by family and professionals.

The lies, coupled with dissociative fantasizing about who their mothers were, and thus who they were...festered their anger into rage that erupted in one or many acts of murder. The taking of life...by those who felt that part of their lives were taken from them.

I was aware of murderous adoptees and Kirschner's work in the late 80's and wrote about both in The Dark Side of Adoption.

I read Uncharted Waters now, not just from the perspective as one interested in all things adoption, nor as an objective researcher and writer. I read it as the mother of a child who took out her murderous rage out on herself and noted that one of the commonalities in these case studies was suicidal ideation and/or attempts.


Kirschner points out several times that it is a sub-set of adoptees who suffer from Adopted Child Syndrome and only a sub-set of these who murder. I would think it a tremendous contribution to adoption literature for Dr. Kirschner to write another book about all the other ways ACS affects adoptees, other than turning them into murderers. The untold many - for which there are no statistics - who turn their rage inward, many of whom are written off as "accidents."

The final chapters on prevention and treatment are important and useful, but alas fell short of recommending open adoption and concrete help provided for clients suffering with a great passionate need to know. In each case in which Kirschner became involved after the fact of a violent crime, he demanded the defense search for the birth families, yet absence if the suggestion of search as a tool of prevention and treatment. The other missing piece is any mention of CUB or any indication that the vast majority of reunions are welcoming, even when stating: "Even a `bad' reunion in these [after the fact of a murder] cases, chancing a second rejection by the birth mother, would have been extremely helpful and therapeutic..." I have conducted searches on behalf of adoptive parents who saw their adolescent child's desperation. Concern that a rejection might cause further harm, can be alleviated by conducting the search and contact without his/her knowledge to test the water for acceptance.

This shortcoming aside, the book - as Kirschner's work - is a valuable contribution and is recommended reading.

Mirah Riben, author "shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption" (1988) and "The STORK MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry" (2007)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of "Adoption"Uncharted Waters", October 16, 2006

By 

Liatlake - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adoption: Uncharted Waters: A Psychologist's Case Studies. . . Clinical and Forensic Issues, With Practical Advice for Adoptees, Parents and Therapists (Hardcover)

I read this book with great interest - I am not a psychologist, nor am I in any way involved with adoption.
However, the book was in no way difficult for me to
understand. It is written clearly and focuses both on the
psychological and on the criminal aspects of the subject
matter, leaving nothing to the imagination. The case studies are detailed with specific references to the
persons involved.
It is a fine study of a subject terrain previously not
heavily traveled.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cuts through the politics of adoption, June 13, 2007

By 

A reader (New York, N.Y.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adoption: Uncharted Waters (Paperback)

Using extreme examples, Kirschner forces us to face up to issues that potentially affect all adoptees. These are riveting tales, about murderers and parricides, about awful deeds, but ultimately they're about the pain of rejection, abandonment, and exclusion, and what they can do to a child already in distress. A great read, and a good introduction to Kirschner's breakthrough work on Adopteed Child Syndrome.