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Good Enough Adoptive Parenting—The Adopted Child and Selfobject Relations

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Abstract

The article focuses on the needs and problems of adoptive parents, in the framework of self-psychology. It examines several conditions that may impair optimal selfobject relations between adoptive parents and their child, so that self-development and individuation of the adoptee will be at risk: insufficient mourning of the wound of infertility; early narcissistic vulnerability; over-sensitivity to abandonment; proneness to use primitive character defenses; and marital pathology such as insufficient couple alliance. The importance of early individual and couple assessment is stressed, in order to sift, prepare and support the adoptive parents in the complex task of being parents as well as ‘therapists.’ Successful adoption is interpreted as a mutual process of healing of early damages, thereby contributing to the experience of an integrated self by both parents and child.

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Noy-Sharav, D. Good Enough Adoptive Parenting—The Adopted Child and Selfobject Relations. Clinical Social Work Journal 30, 57–76 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014226428266

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