Therapy for Adoptees

As an adoptee myself, I love working with other adoptees! The foundation of my work with adoptees begins by first honoring adoption as a profound, formative experience that can include love, loss, confusion, and anger.

I work with my clients to help regulate and heal their nervous systems, form healthy relationships, reconnect with their bodies. Many adoptees experience disembodiment, anxiety, and/or depression rooted in early preverbal trauma and disrupted attachment. I use aspects of attachment theory and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to help clients deepen self-trust, integrate fragmented parts of the self, and rebuild a sense of safety from the inside out. The goal is not to “fix” adoption or the adoptee, but to help adoptees develop an understanding and compassion for their experiences, a grounded sense of identity, and the capacity for secure, fulfilling relationships.

Together, we can explore topics that are not limited to:

• the early separation from a birth mother and father

• the impact of losing one’s culture of origin

• the unclear months or years of your life before adoption, in which no one may be able to recall

• growing up in a multiracial household

• attachment wounds that may result in codependency, avoidance, or other disorganized attachment patterns

• developing self-love and self-compassion

• search and contact

• unclear or confusing memories of abuse/neglect that may have happened before adoption

• losses that are often minimized or left unspoken

Resources for adoptees:

Adult Adoptees of Washington

Adoption Identity Race Exploration

BIPOC Adoptees

Adopted related book recommendations