Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self (Paperback)

~ David M. Brodzinsky (Author), Marshall D. Schecter (Author), Robin Marantz Henig (Author) "Jon and Nancy were required to wait months before they could bring home their adopted son, Sam, even though they knew who he was and..." (more)
Key Phrases: family romance fantasy, activated search, nonadoptive families, Erik Erikson, Strange Situation, University of Chicago (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ingeniously integrating psychological and educational theories, the authors construct a model of the normal yet unique stages of adoptee development.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A rather thin volume that nevertheless will reassure adoptees that it is usual for questions about adoption and birth parents to persist throughout life. Using Erik Erikson's stages of life as a framework, Brodzinsky (Psychology/Rutgers) and Schechter (Psychiatry/Univ. of Pennsylvania), here writing with Henig (Your Premature Baby, 1983, etc.), call upon years of experience as researchers and counselors in the field of adoption to describe the continual adjustments that adoptees make as they grow from infancy to old age. Most moving is the litany of losses that move adoptees to grieve, often unknowingly. Even infants only a few months old show signs of mourning their first caretakers. Later, the authors say, adoptees may confront the loss not only of a birth family but of a personal and genetic history. The latter is particularly painful when it is time for young adults to begin their own families. Such life crises often kick off a search for birth parents. But the book's authority is undermined by what the authors frankly admit is the rapidly changing environment of adoption, where secrecy and shame are now rarely invoked and searches are often unnecessary. Open adoption-- in which the birth mother is known to and is often closely attached to the adoptive family--and increasingly available birth records eliminate the information gap that most often causes stress in adopted families (although open adoption may create its own set of stresses, the authors point out). Replete with anecdotal material, this offers few new insights but does lay out issues of development that only adoptees face over the course of life. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (March 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385414269
• ISBN-13: 978-0385414265
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #38,593 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sharing perspectives with fellow adoptees, December 7, 1999

By	BILL SAWYER (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This book was extremely helpful in allowing me to see and feel how other adoptees have experienced the same sense of loss I have coped with since childhood. As an adoptee, adopted as an infant, and finding my birth parents after 30+ years, it was amazing to have a book which so clearly outlines the stages of my life, and allowed me to understand the feelings I have had for so long. The book is a quick read, but has depth in the way it will touch any adoptees soul. This book has motivated me to write my own story, as an adoptee, searching for self, while raising two children as a single dad. This book has allowed me to identify feelings which I felt only I experienced, and will allow me to write a book from the heart. Thank you.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Intro?, January 26, 1998

By	Joseph L. Rockne (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

I'll admit that this is the first book of its kind that I have read. However, as a soon-to-be adopting father, I am grateful for this simple to read introduction to some of the psychological issues that my child will go through. What I found most interesting, is the fact that adoptees may wrestle with "their search" for an entire life. They will actually "mourn" for their lost birth mother. (Why don't they ever seem to seek out the birth-father?) Although this book was about adoptee's search for self, it also helped me realize that I am also searching for myself. In fact, everyone spends a lifetime searching for themselves and redefining themselves. Adoptees, however, have a unique set of issues to work out. This was a great introduction to the psychology of adoption. I would recommend it.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding The Whys of Why I Feel This Way, February 10, 2003

By	Darlene Spengel "ilj353" (Westbrook, Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews

This book is right on target. It showed me the reasons for why I've felt the way I have for so many years. I'm 55 and was adopted in infancy. My adopted Mother never told me anything and I always felt left out and some how all alone in this world. Now I understand why I feel the way I have all these years. It's natural and normal. This is an excellent book for adoptees to understand why their feelings are mixed, confused, and not totally feeling a part of this world. I'd recommend this book to all adoptees.