Adoption And Identity Formation Essay Research Paper

Adoption And Identity Formation Essay, Research Paper

There has been an enormous amount of research conducted about adoptees and their

problems with identity formation. Many of the researchers agree on some of the

causes of identity formation problems in adolescent adoptees, while other

researchers conclude that there is no significant difference in identity

formation in adoptees and birth children. This paper will discuss some of the

research which has been conducted and will attempt to answer the following

questions: Do adoptees have identity formation difficulties during adolescence.

If so, what are some of the causes of these vicissitudes. Is there a significant

difference between identity formation of adoptees and nonadoptees. The National

Adoption Center reports that fifty-two percent of adoptable children have

attachment disorder symptoms. It was also found that the older the child when

adopted, the higher the risk of social maladjustment (Benson et al., 1998). This

is to say that a child who is adopted at one-week of age will have a better

chance of normal adjustment than a child who is adopted at the age of ten. This

may be due in part to the probability that an infant will learn how to trust,

where as a ten-year-old may have more difficulty with this task, depending on

his history. Eric Erickson, a developmental theorist, discusses trust issues in

his theory of development. The first of Erickson`s stages of development is

Trust v. Mistrust. A child who experiences neglect or abuse can have this stage

of development severely damaged. An adopted infant may have the opportunity to

fully learn trust, where as an older child may have been shuffled from foster

home to group home as an infant, thereby never learning trust. Even though Trust

v. Mistrust is a major stage of development, the greatest psychological risk for

adopted children occurs during the middle childhood and adolescent years (McRoy

et al., 1990). As children grow and change into adolescents, they begin to

search for an identity by finding anchoring points with which to relate.

Unfortunately, adopted children do not have a biological example to which to

turn (Horner & Rosenberg, 1991), unless they had an open adoption in which

they were able to form a relationship with their biological families as well as

their adoptive ones. Also key to the development of trust is the ability to bond

with adoptive parents. The absence of a biological bond between the adoptee and

adoptive parents may cause trust issues in the adoptee (Wegar, 1995). Baran

(1975) stated, Late adolescence . . . is the period of intensified identity

concerns and is a time when the feelings about adoption become more intense and

questions about the past increase. Unless the adopted child has the answers to

these arising questions, identity formation can be altered and somewhat halted.

McRoy et al. (1990) agree with this point: Adolescence is a period when young

people seek an integrated and stable ego identity. This occurs as they seek to

link their current self-perceptions with their self perceptions from earlier

periods and with their cultural and biological heritage (Brodzindky, 1987, p.

37). Adopted children sometimes have difficulty with this task because they

often do not have the necessary information from the past to begin to develop a

stable sense of who they are. They often have incomplete knowledge about why

they were relinquished and what their birth parents were like, and they may

grieve not only for the loss of their birth parents but for the loss of part of

themselves. In essence, it seems that the adolescent`s identity formation is

impaired because he holds the knowledge that his roots or his essence have been

severed and remain on the unknown side of the adoption barrier. The identity

struggles of the adolescent are ⌠part of a human need to connect with

their natural clan and failure to do so may precipitate psychopathology (Wegar,

1995). Also in agreement with Wegar, McRoy, and Baran is Frisk. Baran et al.

(1975) wrote, ⌠Frisk conceptualized that the lack of family background

knowledge in the adoptee prevents the development of a healthy genetic ego . .

. In most of the studies surveyed, the researchers are in agreement about

one fact. Vital to the adopted adolescent`s identity development is the

knowledge of the birth family and the circumstances surrounding the adoption.

Without this information, the adolescent has difficulty deciding which family

(birth or adopted) he resembles. During the search for an identity in

adolescence, the child may face an array of problems including hostility toward

the adoptive parents, rejection of anger toward the birth parents, self-hatred,

transracial adoption concerns, feeling of rootlessness . . . . (McRoy et al.,

1990). While searching for an identity, adolescent adoptees sometimes ar

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