Clinical psychologist, Michael Grand, brings a compassionate understanding to all members of the adoption constellation. Drawing upon a lifetime of personal experience, research and clinical practice, he challenges conventional ways of thinking about adoption. The limitations of attachment theory as an explanation of adoption outcome are presented. In its place, he suggests a narrative understanding of adoption. Core themes of identity, grief, mattering and trust, permeate these narratives and shape the experience of members of the constellation. As a passionate advocate for openness, Grand explores the psychological costs of denying identifying information to adopted individuals and their birth kin. Parallels are also drawn to an impending crisis as offspring of assisted reproduction seek answers to their identity questions. The book concludes with a consideration of alternative permanency arrangements and a primer for opening closed adoption records. This book will change how we approach adoption in all of its manifestations. Adoptees, birth and adoptive kin, social workers, clergy, teachers, therapists, and legislators alike will find meaning within these pages.

"I am Robert, but once I had another name. As an infant I was held and loved by two women, one who would give me up, and another who raised me and loved me more than life itself. I suppose I should consider myself blessed to have been loved by two mothers when most of us get only one, and some none." Who am I, where did I come from? Why do I feel lost, incomplete, and isolated? These questions haunted my for my entire life growing stronger as time passed by. I finally chose to find my answers and this is my story. It's about my methodology, how it changed me, and who I became at its final destination. Not Remembered Never Forgotten is an examination of the resolution of an adoptee's emotional memories and the search for the authentic self. Not knowing his name at birth, and barred by archaic secrecy laws that seal adoption records forever, the author searched back through fifty years of his past to find the truth that would redefine the essence of who he is.

"Today class, we are going to talk a little about genetics" With these words, Hunter begins a journey to reveal what it means to be adopted. As he sets out to discover all the branches of his family tree, he finds obstacles at every turn. Sometimes they are in the form of thoughtless assumptions, misleading information, misguided policies, as well as his own fear of his parent's reaction and what he may find. Then there is the adoption agency, which is only too happy to help as long as Hunter has the money. With the support of good friends and a few helpful angels along the way, he continues his search for his roots and to look into eyes like his.

The true story of an adopted girl growing up in small town Texas and her eventual search for her birth parents. The author is a Licensed Professional Counselor and provides insight into not only growing up adopted, but also the psychological empact.

The problem with discovering your roots: the more digging you do, the dirtier you can get. Adopted into middle-class urban respectability, but with origins deep in the heart of a dramatic rural landscape, BRONCLE is a personal journey of discovery intrinsically linked to the bloody past of Ireland; a true story of smuggling, heartbreak, betrayal, adultery, and lifetime of deception and secrecy.

Linda Bevis, an American teacher and lawyer, first lived in Beijing in 1983. Twenty-five years later, Bevis, her playwright husband, and her young Chinese-born daughter return to China. Aware of the necessity for adopted families to connect with the birth culture, Bevis and her family delve into Chinese community, schools, language, theater, and return to the Jiangsu orphanage where Leyla Fu-Chi spent her early months. In the year preceding the Beijing Olympics, much is said of China, both good and bad. Bevis' journals offer an inside view not usually heard in the West. While writing about pollution, censorship, and human rights violations, she also portrays her Chinese friends and students as diverse, intelligent, kind people with awareness of past injustices, pride in their country, and hope for the Olympics. Tolerant but honest, balancing maternal and pedagogical concerns with cultural awareness and respect for China's traditions, Bevis' careful reflections reveal a complex, diverse, and surprising China.

"If you have the love in your heart and the courage to adopt a child from a traumatized background, then you must have this book." -- Robert Rich, PhD, anxietyanddepression-help.com
This booklet is a fact-filled resource for adoptive parents who have a child with trauma and attachment disruption experiences. Fraser provides tips and strategies that can be considered before placement as well as days, weeks, and months after your child joins your family. It addresses the day-to-day issues that new parents often get stuck on and provides info on the "Four S's" parenting plan that she shares with families (safety, structure, supervision and support).
Readers will:
Understand how kids with trauma and attachment disruptions first require emotional safety Learn how providing structure will help your child connect with your family Discover the importance of providing engaging supervision Affirm that adoptive parents need support and learn how to help
Therapists' Acclaim for Adopting a Child with Trauma...
"The subtitle of this little book is apt: it is a practical guide. If you are considering adopting, read it first. It may well put you off, but that's better than taking in an already troubled child, only to pass the load on to someone else, causing another experience of rejection and loss for the child."
--Robert Rich, PhD. anxietyanddepression-help.com
"Anyone adopting a child with a history of trauma will find this in work a wealth of practical advice. Its very shortness is a virtue when parenting is already so demanding. Effective parenting, including adoptive parenting, comes out of knowledge and understanding was well as love. Theresa Fraser cuts to the chase with just what you need to know to be prepared to meet the challenges of adopting a traumatized child."
Marian K. Volkman, editor of "Children and Traumatic Incident Reduction"
Learn more at www.theresafraser.com
From Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.com

A child is precious and whether biological or adopted they are miracles. This book aims to reach out and express the true way a child is born...from love. Written for little ones as an introduction to adoption and how they are a gift that blossomed from the heart.

"An adoption professional once told me, 'At its best, there is no adoption system as good as Guatemala's. At its worst, there is none worse.'"--from the foreword by Kevin Kreutner
In "Between Light and Shadow" veteran journalist Jacob Wheeler puts a human face on the Guatemalan adoption industry, which has exploited, embraced, and sincerely sought to improve the lives of the Central American nation's poorest children. Fourteen-year-old Ellie, abandoned at age seven and adopted by a middle-class family from Michigan, is at the center of this story. Wheeler re-creates the painful circumstances of Ellie's abandonment, her adoption and Americanization, her search for her birth mother, and her joyous and haunting return to Guatemala, where she finds her teenage brothers--unleashing a bond that transcends language and national borders.
Following Ellie's journey, Wheeler peels back the layers of an adoption economy that some view as an unscrupulous baby-selling industry that manipulates impoverished indigenous Guatemalan women, and others herald as the only chance for poor children to have a better life. Through Ellie, Wheeler allows us to see what all this means in personal and practical terms--and to understand how well-intentioned and sometimes humanitarian first-world wealth can collide with the extreme poverty, despair, misogyny, racism, and violent history of Guatemala.

Birth mothers are often the forgotten or ignored part of the adoption triad. This collection of literary essays seeks to correct the imbalance by publishing personal stories by birth mothers, adoptive mothers, and adoptees. The stories cover a range of topics about adoption, open adoption, birth parent connections, and unification with children after closed adoption, focusing on the relationship with birth mothers. An anthology of essays by, for, and about birth parents.

"Jimmy" From stepchild and addiction to recovery. This is my story, an average kid growing up in an abusive world of foster homes, going through addiction, homelessness, jails and prison, having a rough time dealing with life itself and a heartbreaking divorce. I'm not anything special, I just want to let kids and people of all ages, to be able to relate and know that they're more of us with the same story out there. I'm writing this book, not because I have been told I should write my story, but for my own therapy, which is important to my recovery as an alcoholic and addict, as it can be for the stepchild that suffers from a life of abuse, alcoholism or drug addiction. I have been blessed with a good memory, and the knowledge of how God has been working in my life. I can remember very clearly from moment to moment, but for time and reading sake, I didn't write about every little thing that happened, but it's pretty darn close In this book I mainly keep the focus on myself as much as possible and as I seen life through my own eyes and not others, at how my drinking progressed and how hard my life came to be, because of it; there may be an exception or so with the step parents and step sisters or brothers through out my life. I had a rough childhood, but not as bad as some kids I met and were friends with during my life, but I experienced more than enough to understand how a hurting stepchild feels. I'm honored to be able to share and hopefully touch someone's heart out there in this crazy world we live in, and grew up in, also for the ones that have a hard concept of family and are alone in life. Men, women and children alike, trying to fit in and just wanting to be happy in their lives. Asking the question's I ask myself, "why me?" how did I get the short end of the stick? Where did I go wrong, and what did I do to deserve this? I once blamed God for my misfortunes, but I know now that God has been keeping a strong caring hand on me, even when I really didn't noticed that he was guiding me along, no matter how deep and dark it became in my life. I hope you enjoy the stories of my life and you can have a sense of being there with me, maybe you had similar times and events that you experienced in the same fashion? It's not everyday you get to read about another foster kids life and how you can walk along side with the abuse, addiction and the everyday heartache of abandonment, or the sinking feeling if anybody is ever going to care about you. But, there are good times though, and there were funny episodes too, not everything in my life has been bad, and I hope that the good times in this book will cause you to find yours Jimmy P. (c) 9/12/

The Journey Of Adoption is our family's journey from a small community in northwestern Minnesota to the mountains of Guatemala. This story unfolds the uniqueness of beginning with one child, giving birth to twins, and culminating in the addition of a sibling group of three older children from an orphanage in Guatemala. The book presents both our perspectives as parents and our children's. The children's contributions of original chapters, artwork, and poetry make this a one-of-a-kind inspirational story for all ages. The cover design is an original acrylic painting by Jenna, entitled, A Mother's Embrace. This painting was created to capture the intimacy and bond between a mother and child. We pray our story will encourage others to step out in faith and become the hands and feet of Jesus. There are so many precious children who need to know and receive the Father's love through adoption. Our journey reveals how God's amazing heart moves mightily on behalf of His precious children awaiting a family.

Eighteen years after adopting his daughter from China, a father publishes the personal journal he kept during the three week period he maneuvered through the Chinese adoption system. This is a record of how he felt the first time he saw and held his daughter and what he experienced with her and the other families adopting at the same time. Ultimately it is the story of a young man who becomes a father and who, upon reflection, believes he is one of the luckiest people alive because of this gift that has been given to him. This is my story.

Breakthrough Treatment Offers New Hope for Recovery
Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition with 3 new chapters on adolescents
"Gentling" represents a new paradigm in the therapeutic approach to children who have experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and have acquired Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result. This text redefines PTSD in child abuse survivors by identifying child-specific behavioral signs commonly seen, and offers a means to individualize treatment and measure therapeutic outcomes through understanding each suffering child's unique symptom profile. The practical and easily understood Gentling approaches and techniques can be easily learned by clinicians, parents, foster parents, teachers and all other care givers of these children to effect real and lasting healing. With this book, you will: Learn child-specific signs of PTSD in abused children Learn how to manage the often intense reactivity seen in stress episodes Gain the practical, gentle, and effective treatment tools that really help these children Use the Child Stress Profile (CSP) to guide treatment and measure outcomes Deploy handy 'Quick Teach Sheets' that can be copied and handed to foster parents, teachers, and social workers
Clinicians Acclaim for "Gentling"
"In this world where children are often disenfranchised in trauma care--and all too often treated with the same techniques as adults--Krill makes a compelling case for how to adapt proven post-trauma treatment to the world of a child."
--Michele Rosenthal, HealMyPTSD.com
"Congratulations to Krill when he says that 'being gentle' cannot be over-emphasized in work with the abused."
--Andrew D. Gibson, PhD Author of "Got an Angry Kid? Parenting Spike, A Seriously Difficult Child"
"William Krill's book is greatly needed. PTSD is the most common aftermath of child abuse and often domestic abuse as well. There is a critical scarcity of mental-health professionals who know how to recognize child abuse, let alone treat it."
--Fr. Heyward B. Ewart, III, Ph.D., St. James the Elder Theological Seminary, author of "AM I BAD? Recovering From Abuse"w
Cover photo by W.A. Krill/ Fighting Chance Photography
Learn more at www.Gentling.org
From the New Horizons in Therapy Series at Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.com
FAM001010 Family & Relationships: Abuse - Child Abuse
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
FAM004000 Family & Relationships: Adoption & Fostering

Marvin was adopted when he was three. In 1985, his curiosity got the best of him and he set out in search for his biological parents.

The softer side of the abortion debate ... In contrast to the front line war of words that emanate with most protest views, Doris takes us behind the scenes into real life drama. The stories contained in this book will make you smile, cry, and find a place in your heart for hurting people that are usually blurred out of the media headlines. As a Pastor, I appreciate the caring way she approaches the issues and the caring hands that she reaches out with to touch hurting hearts. Pastor Rudy Bond New Life Worship Center, Tyler, Texas Doris has gathered a treasury of hope and joy surrounding the adoption process, including Scriptural encouragement and honesty about the fears and challenges involved. This book is a testament to the hand of God with even the least of these. Sara Maynard is a Texas attorney, specializing in representing children. She is Board Certified in Juvenile Law. ADOPTION JOYS, THEY EXPECTED A MIRACLE, explains God's plan for unplanned pregnancies through moving testimonies of families who have experienced the joy of adoption. As the mother of two adopted children and one adopted grandson, I found myself rejoicing with the families through their stories. This book will be an effective tool to encourage couples to consider adopting children to complete their family. Birth parents will also understand the joy their baby will bring to the adoptive couple; and, perhaps, cause them to consider releasing their baby for adoption. God patterned adoption by adopting us into His family through His Son Jesus hrist. May this book challenge birth and adoptive parents to allow children to experience God's unconditional love through the gift of adoption. Judith E. Shalllcross, Retired Christian School principal.

A WIDOW'S INSPIRATIONAL JOURNEY INTO FOSTER CARE
This is a true account of one woman's twelve years as a foster mother to ninety seven foster children. It chronicles the experiences of an emergency foster home, the different foster children and the reasons they came into care. Some of the accounts are tragic, some are uplifting and some are funny, but all of them are heartwarming and memorable. Some children spent only one night, some remained for months and some never left.

This book honors the day your child became part of your family. Because of this event, you too, can celebrate "Adoption Day" as a holiday each year in your family. This story is about circling the globe to make a family complete. It tells of a child's desire for a sibling through his or her own eyes. We offer these books in a variety of sibling possibilities to fit your family.

This book honors the day your child became part of your family. Because of this event, you too, can celebrate "Adoption Day" as a holiday each year in your family. This story is about circling the globe to make a family complete. It tells of a child's desire for a sibling through his or her own eyes. We offer these books in a variety of sibling possibilities to fit your family.

This book honors the day your child became part of your family. Because of this event, you too, can celebrate "Adoption Day" as a holiday each year in your family. This story is about circling the globe to make a family complete. It tells of a child's desire for a sibling through his or her own eyes. We offer these books in a variety of sibling possibilities to fit your family.

This gripping memoir details an ordinary American woman's quest to adopt a baby girl from Guatemala in the face of overwhelming adversity. At only 32 years old, Jessica O'Dwyer experiences early menopause, seemingly ending her chances of becoming a mother. Years later, married but childless, she comes across a photo of a two-month-old girl on a Guatemalan adoption website , and feels an instant connection. From the get-go, Jessica and her husband face numerous and maddening obstacles. After a year of tireless efforts, Jessica finds herself abandoned by her adoption agency undaunted, she quits her job and moves to Antigua so she can bring her little girl to live with her and wrap up the adoption, no matter what the cost. Eventually, after months of disappointments, she finesses her way through the thorny adoption process and is finally able to bring her new daughter home. Mamalita is as much a story about the bond between a mother and child as it is about the lengths adoptive parents go to in their quest to bring their children home. At turns harrowing, heartbreaking, and inspiring, this is a classic story of the triumph of a mother's love over almost insurmountable odds.