My biggest encouragement for adoptive families is to be open to the ideas/realities in this book and to give permission for your youth to wrestle through them. It may help bring insight and awareness and ultimately, healing for your youth and your family. I don't think there are a ton of therapists with this degree of knowledge about adoption issues, so I would highly recommend sharing this with your young person's therapist if this is not already their area of expertise. I appreciated the many insights and examples of the complexities of counseling adopted adolescents and helping them make sense of their stories, whilst supporting and strengthening adoptive family relationships. However, I felt the author was fair and empathetic toward parents in her writing. Be forewarned, though, parts of it may be tough for an adoptive parent to read. I appr Super helpful resource for adoptive parents and for clinicians who may work with children or youth who have been adopted, or even youth who have been in long-term foster care (who may struggle with some of these same grief/loss/abandonment/complex trauma issues without a stable parent figure to help them sort through the pieces). Super helpful resource for adoptive parents and for clinicians who may work with children or youth who have been adopted, or even youth who have been in long-term foster care (who may struggle with some of these same grief/loss/abandonment/complex trauma issues without a stable parent figure to help them sort through the pieces). To them I'd say, 'PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!'. However, it has been my personal experience that it is I who has always considered adoption to contribute significantly to my child's behavior issues and have found that most of the therapists and psychiatrists that we have sought care from have not been willing (or possibly comfortable?) to delve into the matter. The middle chapters speak more to the parent and are less clinical, but it's all useful.ДЇor me a paradox is that the authors state that parents often fail to consider adoption as a relevant issue for what ails their child(ren). However, there is a lot that parents can learn from it as well. The book is written to speak very much to the audience of clinical providers (therapists) who work with adopted teens, ESPECIALLY to those who may not have ever considered how adoption can play a HUGELY significant role in what ails these children and causes them to present into therapy. Having an adopted child who is a teen now, I can see threads of these truths have been present probably since about age 4-6 y in him. If an adopted child has been diagnosed with one or more of several disorders with mixed/nebulous symptoms, such as GAD (anxiety), depression, ADHD, ODD, DMDD, among others (and certainly PTSD), it's very possible that he/she may be manifesting the masked feelings of adoption loss, grief, and/or trauma.ДЄlthough it's titled to be a book about teens, much of this is relevant at any stage. Although it's titled to be a book about teens, much of this is relevant at any This book is a very helpful presentation of the feelings many of our adopted children may experience/be experiencing. If an adopted child has been diagnosed with one or more of several disorders with mixed/nebulous symptoms, such as GAD (anxiety), depression, ADHD, ODD, DMDD, among others (and certainly PTSD), it's very possible that he/she may be manifesting the masked feelings of adoption loss, grief, and/or trauma. This book is a very helpful presentation of the feelings many of our adopted children may experience/be experiencing.

Beneath the mask