Introducing Therapists to Adoption and Its Complexities

Reviews the video, Helping Children Understand Adoption with Marc A. Nemiroff (2006). Given the complexities of adoption in the 21st century, the title of this videotape-- Helping Children Understand Adoption--is somewhat misleading. The video illustrates how a therapist approaches the topic of adoption by focusing on a particular nine-year-old girl named Liz and her understanding of her own story. The reviewer feels that this video just scratches the surface of therapy in adoption. It is important that adoptive parents, clinicians, and developmental researchers recognize that much of the available research on adoptees and their families antedates the changes in adoptive practice that have occurred over the past two or three decades. The reviewer recommends three books that convey much more of the complexity one is likely to encounter when working with adoptees and their families in 2006. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)