2015 Numero 4

Genitori e figli adottivi: ri-nascere nella complessità

In approaching a newly formed adoptive family, the analyst psychologist is faced with a universe characterized by a high level of experiential complexity and emotional density, a nucleus in which everyone is immersed in a very particular relational climate. We could define it as a climate of movement, of openness to the other and yet also of indefiniteness. This favors and indeed makes it necessary towards the adoptive family an approach and a look that are in a certain way experimental. A psychological methodology that is itself “in motion”, that is, able to grasp the psychic forces at play and to put in brackets any type of theoretical prejudice and any excess of interpretative tension, it therefore seems to us the most suitable for accompanying adults and adoptive children in the first period of their establishment as a family unit. The post-adoption path that we will describe here in its characteristics and in its unfolding, as well as the method on which it is based, are developed with the intention of accompanying parents and adoptive children in the construction of the mutual relationship, intercepting the characteristics and resources of each one, which emerge spontaneously already during the first meeting.

The satisfaction of the desire for parenthood after a long wait on the part of adults and the primary needs of children, who from the day of their entry into the family are subjected to a “bombardment” of stimuli of unprecedented intensity, give rise to the the impression that the adoptive family is an organism pulsating with life, and equally in need of being accompanied. A need often expressed directly by adults, even when there are no problems in place. Parents and children want and feel close to each other, but they don’t know each other. The auroral state of mutual falling in love, or at least of strong tension towards emotional closeness, coexists with looks and questions that express uncertainty, an expression of adult and infantile needs that do not necessarily coincide, especially in their temporal expression. The change of life that each member of the family undergoes in the initial months is in fact so intense that emotions and thoughts can only be contradictory. In this phase the foundations of the relationship between parents and children and of the future relational structure of the nucleus are laid.

The atmosphere is that of a beginning: both parents and children are immersed, a few months after the child enters the family, in a state of great cognitive openness and at the same time of intense emotional upheaval. It is in this phase of “epochal” transformation for each of the members of the family that the post-adoption meetings begin, configured in sessions of an hour and a half / two in the presence of the entire nucleus. The path of each family includes a number of sessions varying from four to six, depending on the age of the child, which are held every two / three months. The age of the children varies from a few months to ten years. To respond to the need of the family unit to be accompanied, respecting the need for everyone to develop their own relational style, the post-adoption meetings take place in an apparently poorly structured setting. They are therefore configured as a space for dialogue and reflections “in motion” between the analyst psychologist and the whole family, in which parents ask questions starting from everyday life with their child, express doubts, observe their child. At the same time and space, the child or children play, draw, interact freely with the parents and the therapist, listen to the words of the adults. The little ones thus have a first precious experience, that of feeling seen, thought about and listened to by their parents. They can also take the floor to let themselves be seen. Configuring itself as a free dialogue and as a dynamic snapshot of everyone’s emotions,

In this climate and in this setting it often happens that the concrete communicative register suddenly opens to the symbolic, that is, the deep emotions of the parent and the child find the way to express themselves.

The meetings thus conceived therefore give life to a space in which adults, making the initial emotions aware and stabilizing, giving word to daily fears and expectations, gradually activate the parental function, which starts from their personal characteristics, to arrive to take root in the instinctive dimension.

In the same space, children gradually learn to feel they are children of those parents, above all they can feel that their loss of little people catapulted into a new family from another world is legitimate and is adequately welcomed.

During the post-adoption meetings, observing the interaction between parents and children, we have the opportunity to witness in real time excerpts of the relationship between parents and children, caught in the phase of its birth and its consolidation. The first meetings testify to the emotional earthquake experienced by children as well as adults: in the dialogues there is ample space for the fears and doubts of the parents, but also the looks and gestures of the children, capable, however small they may be, of giving voice to fears, but also showing remarkable adaptability and amazing reactive energy. We gradually assist in the subsequent meetings to the narratives on the transformation of the relationship in the couple and on becoming brothers, processes experienced by adults with a lot of involvement and, above all the second, with greater concern than the way of living it of the little ones. Over the months we listen to the testimonies on the progressive rooting of the child in the family and in the outside world; furthermore, the questions related to the theme of origins, which in any case remain alive in the minds of the adopted children, come to take on an increasingly central space, as well as that of feeling, growing up, equal and different compared to other people.

It soon becomes clear to the psychologist’s eyes (and also to the parents’ eyes) that such and many aspects make up the adoptive relationship, and so intense is the cognitive involvement that both adults and children require, that it takes the form of a process of mutual adoption, which begins immediately and is destined to last over time.

Since it is a relationship with some specific characteristics, starting immediately to become aware of it can become an important resource for those who experience it. In fact, from the first days after their meeting, parents and adopted children feel close and strangers at the same time, a paradox destined to accompany them over time. If closeness is rooted in the affective dimension, the strangeness has its origin in the story of the child, in that unavoidable complex dimension of the unknown that accompanies its origins. Faced with this aspect, the adoptive parents, although trained and prepared to face it, are understandably in difficulty, especially when they are faced with the first manifestations of the child’s already formed personality, with his questions about his past, to bewilderment and fatigue in the face of the completely foreign world into which he feels catapulted. This is one of the highly emotional moments of the post-adoption process. The child who has just arrived from a country on another continent feels at times really a stranger, both in the family and in the outside world: however small he is, he finds himself being cared for by two adults unknown to him, towards whom he alternates states of soul of affective and vital impulse to others of distrust and fear. He needs time to bond. How can we face this mistrust which often, when it is very evident, generates confusion and pain especially in mothers? The child who has just arrived from a country on another continent feels at times really a stranger, both in the family and in the outside world: however small he is, he finds himself being cared for by two adults unknown to him, towards whom he alternates states of soul of affective and vital impulse to others of distrust and fear. He needs time to bond. How can we face this mistrust which often, when it is very evident, generates confusion and pain especially in mothers? The child who has just arrived from a country on another continent feels at times really a stranger, both in the family and in the outside world: however small he is, he finds himself being cared for by two adults unknown to him, towards whom he alternates states of soul of affective and vital impulse to others of distrust and fear. He needs time to bond. How can we face this mistrust which often, when it is very evident, generates confusion and pain especially in mothers?

Again, how to deal with the child’s memories, his nostalgia for the people who took care of him in the country of origin? How to behave towards previous emotional ties?

These are topics that become the subject of the parents’ questions and reflections during the meetings: rather meaningful questions, which make it necessary for the analyst psychologist to listen attentively to grasp every element at stake, and at the same time not very interpretative. While parents tell of their loss or real discomfort with respect to a moment of distance or “closure” on the part of the child, for example, the children apparently continue to be concentrated in the game, listening very carefully to every word. Not infrequently they express gestures and phrases of joy, relief and gratitude towards the parent and also towards the psychologist at the end of the meeting: feeling thoughtful, perceiving the investment of parents in them, helps them to soothe mistrust and feeling strangers .

Thus, the participation of the whole family in the meetings translates into an opportunity for each to perceive the others, their feelings, the creation of the emotional relationship and its becoming in the here and now of each session.

This first knot of the adoptive family relationship, which we have summarized in the term near-stranger, is destined to change as knowledge and living together give life to a common history: the adoptive family bond grows and is consolidated in any case on a part of irreducible otherness. Let’s think of another experiential oxymoron that every adopted child knows well, that of feeling equal and different (with respect to family members, but also with respect to peers, as well as towards the outside world). In the adoptive family, ties can be built and consolidated only if we start from these experiential data, which constitute its backbone, its specificity, but also its mysterious and fascinating aspect. If it is on these aspects, which refer to psychic elements partially elusive to a definition,

As we have seen, in fact, the thrust towards the emotional bond must coexist, in the adoptive parental experience, with a persistent and articulated otherness (from somatic difference to cultural belonging, to the past history of the child, many and changing are the aspects that are part of it). All this translates concretely into a process in which the parent, while dealing with the child’s wounds, at the same time also approaches the reparative resources, vital energy and the great ability to adapt to the new situation that children gradually show to who relates to them. By learning to know the child, to find their own way to be a parent of that child, the adoptive parent therefore encounters the opportunity to face their fears and correct many idealizations and prejudices, both in terms of the characteristics of the child and the parental role he has to live. In my opinion, the joy, the amazement and the gradual reassurance that linger in the last post-adoption sessions arise from here: adults discover that adopting is a mutual process, that to build a solid bond with the newly arrived child they must allow themselves to be transformed. And that the continuous search for the relationship has the effect of calming the anxieties of inadequacy of adults in the game of the relationship, of learning to live with the otherness of the child. A process that begins following the punctual, difficult and profound questions of the children and is not infrequently conducted by them. In our opinion, all this gives post-adoption meetings the form of real workshops, useful to prevent the emergence of future conflicts that are linked to superficial initial approaches, or to partial views on the child’s reality. In a certain way, the encounters favor an education in the relationship in its most authentic aspect. In fact, the complexity of the challenge, combined with the drive towards the relationship with the child, pushes each of the protagonists to give the best of themselves, and therefore to put a great deal of energy into play. Often in the adoptive parents there is a willingness to actively reflect, to confront what is going on. We are witnesses of the union between a strong tension towards parenthood and an equally intense mental stimulation, originated as we have seen from the precocious perception of the paradoxical and inconclusive nature of the adoptive relationship. It is from this union that the drive to create meaning and build values in the daily life of family is born. Therefore, not infrequently there is a strong individual drive, which also manifests itself in the parents as the family relationship is consolidated: this drive can be seen as a way to experience the paradoxes inherent in the relationship without suffering them, but also as tension. towards their overcoming.

The parent’s thought seems to be formulated in this way: if your child is other than me and I will never be able to feel you completely mine, as happens in the imagination of every new parent, then I have to build with every energy the belonging between us. To do this, I cannot fail to take into account who you are, your identity and your history, the distant world you come from, even your past ties and nostalgia. I understand that I cannot force your time, if I try to do so I cause suffering in you and it is the last thing I want. We must therefore slowly build a bond together. We are different and I often don’t understand your reactions. But it is my intention to meet you, get to know you and recognize you as a person. I don’t have a clear idea of how to do it: but day after day I observe you, stay with you, take care and learn to guide you,

The deep core of the adoptive family bond is all here. It consists in an approach between different identities which, in the deep recognition of otherness, can give rise over time to a relationship of surprising belonging.

The unfolding of mutual attachment between children and parents in the first year of adoption led us to think that it was necessary to dwell on those thematic nuclei which, although emerging during the first times of progressive family construction, punctuate the subsequent passages. The in-depth studies are intended to approach the understanding of issues that are immediately a challenge for adoptive families, faced with the awareness both of the effort of commitment and of those evolutionary and maturational possibilities that only ‘impossible’ challenges can constitute. These are absolutely ‘normal’ issues for any family, but for the adoptive one, precisely because of its specific originality, they take on a value of incomparable significance.

The first issue to arise concerns ‘the encounter’. We meet for the first time in the temenos space of the first post-adoption session and it is precisely there that we talk about the first encounter with thatchild, when the fantasies, emotions and experiences of so many years of waiting have materialized. In this first moment of post-adoption, the dimension of the story emerges quite spontaneously, in two forms: the encounter and the narration of the encounter. Deepening the theme of the narrative means trying to grasp the sense of a particular accompaniment to the growth of the child: the narration guides, in fact, the evolution of the personality from birth to adulthood, contributing to the formation of personal identity. The individual begins to tell about himself when he becomes aware of how up to that moment it has been narrated by others, parents and family members.

The magic of the encounter is constantly renewed as it is told over and over to the child. Subsequently, this narration will end up constituting a vital passage in the relationship between child and parents, capable of cementing their relationship more and more and providing the child with an important identity consolidation. If it is important for any child to be able to place themselves within a narrative and a family story, for the adoptive one this aspect has a strongly reparative power: it can recover and reweave an interrupted or broken thread. With adoptive children you can touch the ‘symbolic’.

The narrative model periodically returns to accompany the evolution and growth of a relationship of extraordinary emotional value, and therefore symbolic, having as a crucial node an ‘impossible’ challenge: to integrate the opposite terms of belonging and extraneousness. The child passes from the ‘diversity’ of the state of abandonment to the ‘normality’ of a family unit, but also, on the contrary, from the ‘normality’ of the orphanage to the ‘diversity’ of the family. He must also face the integration of the relational and social self formed in the country of birth with the one being formed in the adoptive family, in the arduous process of identification with the new family and social culture.

Important is not only what is narrated, but who is narrating. The parental dimension is at the center, being a dimension with a high symbolic potential, a disposition of the psyche to contain another being thinking about it at 360 °. In fact, parenthood is placed within relationality and intersubjectivity in the symbolic dimension of the ‘third’, the Other. Its genesis can be traced already starting from the constitution of the couple relationship. This relationship can constitute a place in which two minds and two bodies can create a symbolic container: here pro-creativity emerges as a full and fruitful dimension, but also ‘fecundating’. In generativity, biological or adoptive, the task of making internal families emerge, overcoming their cultures and elaborating their myths becomes indispensable. Attention to development and self-expression also emerges, the desire for an extension of oneself into the future, a drive to identify oneself. An identity restructuring is therefore initiated, as well as a relational one. Repairing dynamisms are possible aimed at filling gaps, at making peace with the missing aspects of one’s parents, compensating them creatively. This can also happen thanks to the comparison with the different personality of the child, in expanding the concept of intimacy and in accepting the challenge of the oscillation between dependence and autonomy. compensating them creatively. This can also happen thanks to the comparison with the different personality of the child, in expanding the concept of intimacy and in accepting the challenge of the oscillation between dependence and autonomy. compensating them creatively. This can also happen thanks to the comparison with the different personality of the child, in expanding the concept of intimacy and in accepting the challenge of the oscillation between dependence and autonomy.

Reflecting on the relational dimension leads us to think of the family system, an area in which each individual experiences a broad and complex relationality. For every child, the importance of the family context is unequivocal. Think above all of the figures of grandparents as transmitters of the sense of family history. The life of a family goes through phases and moments and is marked by events and changes in the relational composition. The birth of a nephew is one of the most important events in terms of transformations of the relational dynamisms, conscious and preconscious, of the members of the family. It can be a powerful chance not only because children who have become parents experience a full adult dimension, but also because grandparents have an opportunity to compensate for the shortcomings of the past, make up for losses suffered, to repair the damages of life, to have a further proof of passage to a new phase of maturity. The birth of a grandson always represents a double emotion: for the new born and for one’s own child. Here is an important intergenerational element: becoming a grandparent means dealing with becoming parents of one’s children. Like parenthood, the arrival of a nephew makes the taking on of different roles and functions inevitable, accessing a new representation of oneself. The grandfather is free from the heavy sense of responsibility and from the role of model for a correct education, but also from the fear of mistaking the ‘measures’ of love, elements that create in parents the thought of having to be a ‘perfect parent’. For the child, a fuller and more mature dimension of his individual being is represented, in becoming aware of the chain of generations that follow one another. In feeling welcomed, accepted, recognized, in the feeling of belonging not only and not so much to someone, but to a group: the relationship with the grandfather is colored with real magic! And speaking of magic, think also here of the importance of narration, of history, of fable for the child: it is inserted in a relational flow within the dialogue in the relationship with another, creating a dimension of shared meaning. The narrative becomes the transitional space, that emotionally pregnant place and time, that precious moment of growth. the relationship with the grandfather is colored with real magic! And speaking of magic, think also here of the importance of narration, of history, of fable for the child: it is inserted in a relational flow within the dialogue in the relationship with another, creating a dimension of shared meaning. The narrative becomes the transitional space, that emotionally pregnant place and time, that precious moment of growth. the relationship with the grandfather is colored with real magic! And speaking of magic, think also here of the importance of narration, of history, of fable for the child: it is inserted in a relational flow within the dialogue in the relationship with another, creating a dimension of shared meaning. The narrative becomes the transitional space, that emotionally pregnant place and time, that precious moment of growth.

Specifically, for adoptive children, for whom subjectivity is strongly exposed to the process of recognition by others and subject to external attribution, the presence of the grandfather becomes particularly important. For the grandfather of an adoptive grandson, the urge to tell about himself, his past and that of his family seems to draw greater strength from knowing the distant origin of that grandson, now invested in an object of love and made ‘his own’ day by day, in the progressive getting to know him and making himself known. In the formation of relationships between adults and children, the psychological birth is decisive, more than the biological one. As the relationship is filled with shared and shared moments, an increasingly pertinent portrait of that initially unknown little person is drawn in the grandfather’s mind. giving him the pleasant sensation of helping to draw part of the features. Figure of symbolic value for the meanings connected with the archetype of the old, the progenitor, the progenitor, he can act as a catalyst of both positive and negative values, of an idealized and demonized parent. The grandfather thus expresses the physiological ambivalence of every intense emotional relationship, and can be of very useful support to the figures of the parents, who thanks to him are relieved of negative values so distributed and diluted. The relationship is enriched by the feeling of transmitting and receiving a tradition, a memory, a story precisely for those who have suffered its abrupt and dramatic interruption, and it is a curative and reparative push for both protagonists. Grandparents represent a mythical time for a grandson, the myth of origins that always fascinates children. The adoptive children, through their grandparents, can access family events and events, starting to feel part of them, and at the same time develop a feeling of belonging that does not cancel the first part of life and origins. Taking care of the generations is taking on the responsibility of protecting and educating the little ones to grow up, adults capable of trusting in themselves and nurturing trust in others and in the world, to invest their resources and develop projects, to pursue ideals and to realize dreams, to develop a feeling of oneself in relation to others… History represents itself in History. they can access family events and events, starting to feel part of it, and at the same time develop a feeling of belonging that does not cancel the first part of life and its origins. Taking care of the generations is taking on the responsibility of protecting and educating the little ones to grow up, adults capable of trusting in themselves and nurturing trust in others and in the world, to invest their resources and develop projects, to pursue ideals and to realize dreams, to develop a feeling of oneself in relation to others… History represents itself in History. they can access family events and events, starting to feel part of it, and at the same time develop a feeling of belonging that does not cancel the first part of life and its origins. Taking care of the generations is taking on the responsibility of protecting and educating the little ones to grow up, adults capable of trusting in themselves and nurturing trust in others and in the world, to invest their resources and develop projects, to pursue ideals and to realize dreams, to develop a feeling of oneself in relation to others… History represents itself in History.

From that collective context represented by the extended family to the social and collective one, of which the school is a part, the step is short. The entrance to school is a fundamental stage in the life of the child, representing the official entry into society: a step of great importance in being the first contact with an institutional context that for many years will be part of the child’s daily life. For the parent it is a matter of introducing the child to the community, facing the judgment on his own work. For the child it is an important step in the path of autonomization from the parents and the family context, separation from the primary caregivers and comparison with different educational figures, the first test of skills and abilities. Starting from the kindergarten, the school represents a place of its own and peculiar rules and norms, insertion into a network of complex relationships. It is a moment of real re-structuring of the way of seeing oneself and one’s world. A place of training, but also of discovery, invention, creation, a laboratory of relationships and sociality, of identity formation. This new ‘journey’ frequently becomes a stage immediately following the concrete and metaphorical ‘journey’ of the encounter and then of entering the new home. For the adoptive child, insertion into a collective context cannot be sudden and unprepared, but always accompanied by attention, flexibility and cautious progression. In fact, it is a question of identifying and experimenting with the timing and structure of the stay at school that are most appropriate for her needs. This path, if well accompanied and followed, it turns out to be an important step in the process of formation and consolidation of the feeling of belonging that started in the family: by understanding the relationship with the wider social context, it becomes stable, even more gratifying and satisfying. The initial position inevitably includes a disadvantage in relation to the difficulties linked to the traumas experienced and the lack of training and didactic experiences, but this is never a predictive factor of an unfavorable nature, on the contrary it could turn into a resource of surprising importance. The child shows a great desire to recover what he has missed and lost, in terms of stimulation and support of his curiosity and desire to learn, expanding his experiential horizon and accumulating knowledge. Nevertheless, problems with concentration and attention, hyperexcitability, restlessness and difficulty in respecting the rules can also occur in adoptive children. In these cases it is an uphill journey, but the resources of the children, who have already revealed a high degree of resilience in coping with highly disorganizing situations, often prove to be remarkable. They are children with a desire to live, to recreate an important trust in the world and in people, to fulfill themselves and express themselves. The school can also play an important role in contributing to this recovery, offering corrective experiences with respect to representations of oneself and one’s skills, giving the possibility to develop a balanced, stable and coherent feeling of self. The school integration of adoptive children also represents an element of great importance for the Italian school, characterized in recent years by transformations on a cultural and social level. The school is increasingly marked by an element of multiculturalism and multilingualism. The presence of adoptive children forces the school to carry out deep and careful reflections on important issues such as the needs of the child, his rhythms and ways of learning, his ways of relating: important reflections for an in-depth knowledge of all children. If adoption is a challenge for parents towards society and society, it is also a challenge for the school, which is a part and promoter of society. Taking part in this challenge means for those who work in the school to contribute to educational processes of confrontation and openness, both for children and for adults. It means proposing a broadening of horizons and the adoption of an open and flexible mentality, teaching children, future adults and citizens, the basic principles of civil coexistence. It is the school’s job to ensure that the classroom is that place where all the children, and not just the adoptive ones, can be pleasantly together, without fear or inconvenience; where they can learn interesting things, share stories and count on good experiences and new discoveries. The school, an essential part of society, has the task of educating in tolerance, consideration of individual values, respect for differences, curiosity, broad vision, openness to the new and the different, to dialogue. Are we talking about a dream, a hope? The life of the adoptive child needs to regain the taste for dreams, overcoming what has temporarily become a nightmare. Why give up the dream of a school capable of welcoming the adoptive child and providing him with the collective and community experiences he needs? Parents, families, schools can collaborate in providing the little one with careful and competent accompaniment in his growth, just as care for future generations must be expert and competent. Why give up the dream of a school capable of welcoming the adoptive child and providing him with the collective and community experiences he needs? Parents, families, schools can collaborate in providing the little one with careful and competent accompaniment in his growth, just as care for future generations must be expert and competent. Why give up the dream of a school capable of welcoming the adoptive child and providing him with the collective and community experiences he needs? Parents, families, schools can collaborate in providing the little one with careful and competent accompaniment in his growth, just as care for future generations must be expert and competent.