7rin on adoption

Mental Health of Adoptive Child
by Origins Inc

What They Knew and Didn't Tell Us

( 1943-1991 )

James, O. (2008) The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza. London: Vermillion. (pp.18-20)

Bold & underline = my emphasis

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Contrary to decades of claims that early experiences have no special influence on subsequent emotional well-being and personality, it is finally becoming apparent that negative experiences during the first five years do cause more damage than those in subsequent years. Many thousands of studies suggest this ...
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Studies of adoptees suggest that the older the child when adopted, the greater the damage. While intellectual deficits can often be largely reversed by stimulating adoptive environments, lasting psychopathology is found in significant proportions even where the adoptive nurture is first rate. Causal links have been demonstrated between adult personality disorder and maltreatment before the age of two; one study has shown this to be the strongest single predictor of dissociation at age nineteen, after allowing for quality of subsequent care and other factors. On top of this, it now seems clear that psychoanalyst John Bowlby was essentially correct in his claim that the period from six months to three years is a sensitive time for forming a secure pattern of attachment.
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Many studies of animals have shown that early experience has a greater effect on the brain but it is only recently that evidence of this has been provided in humans. For example, lasting damage to cortisol levels and persistently atypical brainwave patterns have been demonstrated in children whose mothers were depressed when they were infants, regardless of whether the mother recovered from the depression. The very size of brain structures can be affected by early care: for example, the volume of the hippocampal region of the brain is 5 per cent less in women who were sexually abused as children. The earlier that abuse is suffered, the greater the reduction in intracranial volume. It is increasingly apparent that patterns of neurotransmitters and hormone levels are often an effect of past and present psychological processes, rather than physiology or genetics.
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Taken from Nancy Verrier's book, Coming Home to Self.

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For the adoptee every day is a challenge of trying to figure out how to be, although he probably doesn't understand the difficulty this presents for him. It has been true his whole life and, therefore, feels normal. However, it takes a great deal of energy and concentration. And it never feels quite right. He never quite fits. Therefore he feels as if /he/ is never quite right.
(pg 50)

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Abandonment and neglect are reported to be the two most devastating experiences that children endure - even more devastating then sexual or physical abuse. That's why some neglected children do naughty things to get attention. Even though the attention is hurtful - being yelled at, hit, or otherwise harmed - it is better than neglect. /Anything/ is better than abandonment. Abandonment is a child's greatest fear. For adoptees, it is also reality, embedded in their implicit and unintegrated memory.
(pg 102)

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It is sometimes difficult to spot grief in children. After all, it isn't as if the child sits in a puddle of tears his entire childhood. As one adoptee said, "Of course I played, laughed, sang. Do people think that if you're not sitting in a corner with your head on your knees, you are not sad? I had happy times, but the sadness was always there, even when I was having fun."
(pg 117)

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