Exploring adopted adolescents’ inner world through the lens of qualitative methodology

•The value of utilizing a qualitative approach focusing on individual attachment-based narratives (the Friends and Families Interview) allows investigating mental representations of self and significant others by giving voice to the adopted adolescents’ inner worlds.•Positive relationships with the adoptive family, relational conflict, recognize significant others’ supportive role, and the possibility of reparation are the main thematic within the adolescents’ narratives.•Narratives permit a better understanding of the adoption processes in adolescence and stimulate wider and clearer dialogue between adoptive families and public adoption services. Adolescence can be regarded as a transitional phase of profound changes with significant consequences for overall psychosocial adjustment. Adolescence may represent a more challenging period for adopted than non-adopted individuals, as they face greater risks of developing maladaptive problems. Research in this area has largely focused on factors associated with maladaptive rather than adaptive outcomes, mainly investigated through the use of quantitative methods. Given these considerations, the present explorative investigation applies a qualitative methodology to an attachment-based interview (the Friends and Family Interview; Steele & Steele, 2005), with the aim of exploring adopted adolescents’ mental representations of self and significant others by giving voice to their inner worlds. The study constitutes part of a larger research project conducted in Italy, involving 13 adopted adolescents (aged 12–17) who have been placed for international adoption for a length of almost eight years. The thematic analysis conducted on the 13 interviews revealed a total of 20 categories, from which six were considered dominant within the adolescents’ narratives: positive relationship with the adoptive family; relational conflict; recognize significant others’ supportive role; possibility of reparation; fear of rejection/abandonment; and tendency not to recognize the adoptive family. The majority of positively oriented themes indicated positive attitudes toward the adoptive family, which was regarded as a repairing relational space. The findings highlight the value of utilizing a qualitative approach and focusing on individual narratives in order to reveal the varied experiences of the adoption process as well as to provide useful tools for public adoption services and social workers dealing with post-adoption issues.