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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Treatment Considerations For Adoption-Related Complex Trauma, Jessica Reyka
Treatment Considerations For Adoption-Related Complex Trauma, Jessica Reyka
Dissertations
The western culture holds many assumptions related to adoption; however, it is clear based on the research provided that adoption and the circumstances leading up to being adopted often leave the child traumatized. Many adopted individuals and adoptive families seek mental health services in order to help address some of the symptoms that have manifested through traumatic events. However, the services they are receiving are reportedly lacking in basic knowledge related to adoption and have, at times, done more harm than good. As clinicians, it is important to acknowledge one's scope of clinical competence and to only treat individuals that …
Challenges Of Child Trauma On Adoptive Families' Social And Emotional System, Jacqueline Yvonne Ford
Challenges Of Child Trauma On Adoptive Families' Social And Emotional System, Jacqueline Yvonne Ford
Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies
Adoption-focused psychoeducation is deemed essential in maintaining the permanency of traumatized children within a new family unit. However, adoptive parents of traumatized children struggle to find training to address their unique concerns. Guided by the lens of psychodynamic theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges faced by adoptive families of traumatized children. Special focus was placed on the social and emotional relationships of the adoptive parents of traumatized children, to identify the realistic expectations towards attachment from the families' perspectives. Fifteen families were randomly selected to participate in this study from a group of 30 parents …
Individuation As An Adolescent Developmental Task: Associations With Adoptee Adjustment, Danila Musante
Individuation As An Adolescent Developmental Task: Associations With Adoptee Adjustment, Danila Musante
Doctoral Dissertations
This study evaluated the associations between adolescent individuation and concurrent and long term adjustment in adoptive families. Individuation was assessed using an observational measure examining behaviors and communications demonstrative of individuality and connectedness between each parent and the adolescent. Findings did not support the hypothesized connection between adolescent individuation and concurrent and long term adjustment in adoptive families. However, further analyses revealed particular importance of connectedness between adolescent and parent for adolescent adjustment, which was found to vary by adolescent gender. Specifically, analyses revealed that gender interacts with both adolescent-father connectedness and mother-adolescent connectedness in predicting adolescent internalizing symptoms; for …
Emotion In Adoption Narratives: Links To Close Relationships In Emerging Adulthood, Holly A. Grant-Marsney
Emotion In Adoption Narratives: Links To Close Relationships In Emerging Adulthood, Holly A. Grant-Marsney
Doctoral Dissertations
An adopted person develops a narrative or story to help make sense of his or her adoption. This narrative provides a window into how the adoptee understands the role of adoption in his or her life and articulates feelings and thoughts about it. Adolescent and emerging adult adoptees’ data from the Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project (MTARP) were examined. MTARP longitudinally followed 190 adoptive kinship networks, with varying levels of openness in the adoption, from childhood to emerging adulthood. The current study sought to understand how emotion (affective valence and specific emotions), as identified in the adoption narratives during adolescence and …
The Lived Experience Of Adoption: Do Current Conceptualizations Reflect Changing Realities?, Quade Y. S. French
The Lived Experience Of Adoption: Do Current Conceptualizations Reflect Changing Realities?, Quade Y. S. French
Doctoral Dissertations
The lived experiences of four adopted college undergraduates were documented through a series of semi-structured interviews across a two-year period. Participants were interviewed during their engagement as mentors in an adoption-specific mentoring program (the Adoption Mentoring Program, AMP) in which they were each paired with an adopted child from the community in one-to-one relationships. Importantly, participation in the mentoring program offered mentors a chance to connect with same-aged peers around issues of adoption research, theory, and experiences. Participation in this program is viewed as a marked change in the social context of adoption experienced by participants; this social change provided …