Damaged identity and the search for kinship in adult adoptees

Abstract

A postal questionnaire was sent to 100 members of an organization for helping adopted individuals to trace their origins. Replies were received from 42 women and 34 men, some of whom were interviewed in person or more often by telephone. The voyage of self-discovery was evidently more crucial for women, whose need for a stronger sense of identity had been enhanced by marriage and motherhood. Relatively more men than women had sought help for personal problems in adulthood, although paradoxically more women reported an unhappy experience of adoption and a damaged sense of identity. Predictably, mother-child reunions had often proved disappointing and occasionally distressing for both parties. In contrast, the discovery of lost siblings had usually brought more reward. This aspect of the search for biological relatives deserves more emphasis, in case adoptees (especially when reared as only children and/or when psychologically disturbed) might have more to gain from meeting a sibling than from meeting a parent.