Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted [Paperback]

Robert Andersen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1993

A psychiatrist looks at his own black market adoption.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...so much better than most of the adoptee and birthmother books that it is really in a different league." -- Annette Baran, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., author, The Adoption Triangle

"A sensitive, moving, intelligent, and much needed contribution to adoption literature." -- Betty Jean Lifton, author of Lost and Found, the Adoption Experience

"Dr.Andersen guides us on an incredible trail that will help everyone better understand the complicated realitites of the adoption experience." -- Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., L.C.S.W., Founder and Director of the Adoption Resource Center

About the Author

Robert Andersen received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis and took his psychiatry training at St. Louis University. He is currently Chief of the Mental Health Clinic at the St. Louis Veterans Administration Medical Center and lives in the St. Louis metropolitan area with his son and a variety of animals.

Doctor Andersen has published six articles, on a variety of subjects from prisoners of war to baseball. Two of the articles (in Child Welfare) deal with adoption. He also wrote a chapter on the psychology of runnig in the book The Complete Runner, Volume II.

At age three days Robert Andersen was sold through the black market for $250.00.

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Badger Hill Pr (February 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963264842
• ISBN-13: 978-0963264848
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,550,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black humour on a black market adoption, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted (Paperback)

As an adoptee I worried that Robert Anderson's humour on adoption was far too black. (His adoptee reading suggestions, Bedtime Favourites; My Mother Loved Me So Much She Gave Me Up; Your Birthparents Crashed and Burned; and of course Be Good or We'll Take You back !)

However, the very many golden nuggets of truth I found and returned to again and again were tremendously useful to me.

In "Search and Consequences" he describes two models for the search for ones birth parents; the medical "deficiency" model where the adoptee lacks information or experience which can be found by reunification with the birth parent(s); and the psychological trauma model where one acknowledges and responds to the trauma of adoption which was passively endured as a child, by actively mastering that trauma during a search. Finding is not imperative. The therapeutic agent is internal and the goal is growth, not cure.

He describes the "abstract, diffuse conflicts" adoption can cause, resulting in low self esteem, a lack of self confidence, feeling incomplete, a lack of a sense of belonging. He demonstrates the process of (unconscious) transference and the mayhem it creates in his own relationships.

And a lot more.

Perhaps the humour seems so black because of not having examined closely ones own feelings about the sometimes very uncomfortable issues he raises. As an aid to doing so this book does a great service.

(For light relief and more gloriously black humour on adoption look for Bastard Nation on the web).

If the subject is relevant to you I recommend the book very highly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to read... hard to put down. Worth reading twice!, March 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted (Paperback)

Great book for all touched by adoption. Robert Andersen's book is compelling, thought provocative, and worth reading twice. Helpful not only to adoptees, but also for prospective adoptive parents seeking to understand the impact of adoption on their children. I found it an extremely insightful story. Easy to read... hard to put down. Excellent!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent expression of "black market adoptions", May 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted (Paperback)

This book gets to the heart of what it feels like to be "sold" and not be given the benefit of a paper past like a legal adoption affords adoptees. Robert Andersen conveys to the reader that the frustration that occurs in a persons life when they are rendered non-existent by illegal adoptions should never happen. We are worth more than that.