What do you think?
Rate this book
The Primal Wound: Understanding The Adopted Child
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.. It is a book about pre-and perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding, and loss. It gives adoptees, whose pain has long been unacknowledged or misunderstood, validation for their feelings, as well as explanations for their behavior. It lists the coping mechanisms which adoptees use to be able to attach and live in a family to whom they are not related and with whom they have no genetic cues. It will contribute to the healing of all members of the adoption triad and will bring understanding and encouragement to anyone who has ever felt abandoned..
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1993
331 people are currently reading
5048 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 237 reviews
August 24, 2009
This was a fascinating book. As an adopted person, it illuminated a lot of the feelings and issues I have had for years but never had a name for. It made me realize that it's healthy to have anger and sadness related to the loss of my birthmom, whereas before I thought I should just be grateful to have ended up with the family I got.
It also brings into question adoption as an institution and how our society might rethink it. The author makes the point (and backs it up with evidence) that taking a child away from its birthmother might be the worst thing that could happen to it, even if the birthmother doesn't have the economic means to care for it at the time. Speaking from experience, I think this is true, and I had probably the most ideal adoptive parents a person could ask for.
Adoption is an issue that is sorely in need of discussion in our society, as are the issues of surrogacy, anonymous artificial insemination, children growing up in day care, and abortion. The author has a refreshingly broad viewpoint on these things, seeing them as the paradoxes they are and not the black/white issues many activists like to portray them as. Her main point is one that is often forgotten by parents and medical professionals - that infants are beings with legitimate emotions, not objects that can be passed amongst strangers and expected to like it.
It also brings into question adoption as an institution and how our society might rethink it. The author makes the point (and backs it up with evidence) that taking a child away from its birthmother might be the worst thing that could happen to it, even if the birthmother doesn't have the economic means to care for it at the time. Speaking from experience, I think this is true, and I had probably the most ideal adoptive parents a person could ask for.
Adoption is an issue that is sorely in need of discussion in our society, as are the issues of surrogacy, anonymous artificial insemination, children growing up in day care, and abortion. The author has a refreshingly broad viewpoint on these things, seeing them as the paradoxes they are and not the black/white issues many activists like to portray them as. Her main point is one that is often forgotten by parents and medical professionals - that infants are beings with legitimate emotions, not objects that can be passed amongst strangers and expected to like it.
April 18, 2012
The thing about being adopted is that even if you are "well-adjusted" and have been told since you were an infant that you were "lucky to have the family you have," you still feel like an alien.
The problem with being well adjusted and lucky - is that you feel guilty for feeling like an alien. And there are few (if any) people who understand the pain and frustration you've been carrying around in your head and heart.
That's not to say that other people are unloving or mean, or that you're whole life is mal-adjusted and ungrateful. It's just that being adopted does leave a primal wound.
(I also feel that being born premature and placed in incubators without familial contact, or that being a child of divorce may have similar wounding patterns).
So. Finding this book, full of anecdotes and psychological facts was just what the doctor ordered. If you're adopted, it will help you heal, and if you are a member of the adoption triad you'll find an honest assessment of what's happening and why you feel the way you do.
If you love someone who is part of the triad, this is an essential read for you too!
The problem with being well adjusted and lucky - is that you feel guilty for feeling like an alien. And there are few (if any) people who understand the pain and frustration you've been carrying around in your head and heart.
That's not to say that other people are unloving or mean, or that you're whole life is mal-adjusted and ungrateful. It's just that being adopted does leave a primal wound.
(I also feel that being born premature and placed in incubators without familial contact, or that being a child of divorce may have similar wounding patterns).
So. Finding this book, full of anecdotes and psychological facts was just what the doctor ordered. If you're adopted, it will help you heal, and if you are a member of the adoption triad you'll find an honest assessment of what's happening and why you feel the way you do.
If you love someone who is part of the triad, this is an essential read for you too!
January 2, 2015
A friend of mine said THE PRIMAL WOUND was a must for every adoptive parent. At first I agreed. I appreciate Verrier's insistence that we acknowledge the fundamental wound children experience when they are separated from their birth mothers. Too many adopting parents (myself included) don't understand the gravity of this hurt and how it shapes the child's entire life.
But the more I read Verrier, the more frustrated I became. The primal wound she explores is just one in a panorama of human suffering, but she never places it in context. Nor does she acknowledge the transformational possibilities of such wounds. I agree with Verrier that this primal wound cannot be healed--the ache of losing her birth mother will always be with my daughter. But that wound CAN be transformed; it can become a source of motivation, a creative drive, a longing for union that is fundamentally good and healing. Our deepest hurts can transform us, if we're willing.
So the second half of Verrier's book, where she addresses healing, is woefully inadequate and out of date. She focuses exclusively on the reunion between adoptee and birth mother as a source of healing, ignoring the birth father entirely and dismissing open adoption. My daughter has known her birth mother all along. I'm sure as she grows she'll have new levels of consciousness about her hurt that she needs to test with her birth mom, but reunion is not the solution to her longing. While I don't think her primal wound can be healed and I certainly don't think I can be the source of healing, I know there are thousands of ways her hurt can be transformed and that I can support this process. To assume otherwise is hurtful.
So--new parents and adoptees, read this book with caution.
But the more I read Verrier, the more frustrated I became. The primal wound she explores is just one in a panorama of human suffering, but she never places it in context. Nor does she acknowledge the transformational possibilities of such wounds. I agree with Verrier that this primal wound cannot be healed--the ache of losing her birth mother will always be with my daughter. But that wound CAN be transformed; it can become a source of motivation, a creative drive, a longing for union that is fundamentally good and healing. Our deepest hurts can transform us, if we're willing.
So the second half of Verrier's book, where she addresses healing, is woefully inadequate and out of date. She focuses exclusively on the reunion between adoptee and birth mother as a source of healing, ignoring the birth father entirely and dismissing open adoption. My daughter has known her birth mother all along. I'm sure as she grows she'll have new levels of consciousness about her hurt that she needs to test with her birth mom, but reunion is not the solution to her longing. While I don't think her primal wound can be healed and I certainly don't think I can be the source of healing, I know there are thousands of ways her hurt can be transformed and that I can support this process. To assume otherwise is hurtful.
So--new parents and adoptees, read this book with caution.
April 16, 2019
I did not finish this book it was so bad. As an adoptee I've had a few issues. I figured some were related to the adoption. So I bought this book. It is extremely biased toward the negative and very inaccurate. First off - she needs to learn scientific method. She frequently uses the phrase "most adoptees" - based on what? What is your sample size? Did you have controls? I suspect she bases her opinions on the adoptees she has seen in her practice. So hardly a non-biased study with a well represented sample population. She also makes absolute statements about adoptees as "never" able to or "always" do something. Also not true. Her impetus for this book was her own adopted child who had issues. Again, bias. Moreover, I'm highly offended by her term of "real" mother to refer to the biological or birth mother. My real mother is the one who raised me and loved me; who changed my diapers; who put up with my teens years, who, with my real father, put me through college and graduate school. I would caution well-adjusted adoptees to not read this - it is possible you might start thinking you have problems that aren't there. I know plenty of biological children who have similar issues as she describes - for example trust and abandonment. They are not exclusive to adoptees.
May 20, 2007
This book shed so much light on certain issues of adopted children, and helped me understand myself better. Whether or not they can access them, adoptees have feelings about being adopted, and this book clearly lays out the biology/psychology behind it all, and how to deal. I wish I had found this book during adolescence.
January 11, 2023
influential but unscientific book based on hunches and personal beliefs of the author, herself an adoptive mother of an adopted daughter. Drawing on anecdotal evidence from her own ad-hoc sample of adoptees, the generalisations to the rest of the adoptee population are extremely misleading.
The book is littered with far-reaching - and in my opinion ludicrous - claims such as: "....The search for Self is a mission for many adoptees believe that their "baby soul" was annihilated upon separation from the original mother". As an adoptee myself, my "baby soul" was NOT annihilated at birth!!!!
My struggles with identity and belonging are more to do with trying to fit into a family with a different temperament and energy than was natural to me, alongside other factors. I agree that there is a degree of trauma associated with adoption, but saying it springs from separation from the birth mother is gross simplification and reeks of a political agenda - potentially right wing - which believes children should remain with their birth mothers (no mention of birth fathers or birth families) regardless.
This book hits a few notes but ended up annoying me more than anything. It places too much emphasis on those 9 months in the womb. There is more to life than that.
The book is littered with far-reaching - and in my opinion ludicrous - claims such as: "....The search for Self is a mission for many adoptees believe that their "baby soul" was annihilated upon separation from the original mother". As an adoptee myself, my "baby soul" was NOT annihilated at birth!!!!
My struggles with identity and belonging are more to do with trying to fit into a family with a different temperament and energy than was natural to me, alongside other factors. I agree that there is a degree of trauma associated with adoption, but saying it springs from separation from the birth mother is gross simplification and reeks of a political agenda - potentially right wing - which believes children should remain with their birth mothers (no mention of birth fathers or birth families) regardless.
This book hits a few notes but ended up annoying me more than anything. It places too much emphasis on those 9 months in the womb. There is more to life than that.
December 16, 2021
Where to start with this one? This book was recommended to me because I have a child who was adopted, so I'll begin by admitting that it's hard to be objective about the topic when adoption gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am very clearly pro-adoption.
However, I will readily admit that I don't buy into the fairy tale that all three sides of the adoption triad (child, birth parents, adoptive parents) come out of the process with sunshine and rainbows, no pain, and skip off into their beautiful futures. So I will agree with the author on the following:
-Parenting adopted children is different from parenting biological children.
-All parents involved should take the decision to adopt/place a child for adoption very seriously.
-Adopted children should never be made to feel as though they should be grateful for having been adopted.
-Adopted children will most likely experience sadness or disappointment that their birth parents could not raise them.
-Secrets should never be kept from adopted children.
-It's healthy for anyone to want to know about their biological family/heritage, and adoptive parents should do everything they can to support their children with finding birth families.
Unfortunately, there were many ideas with which I did not agree:
-When adopted children reunite with birth families, there is often a sexual attraction between mother and child, and some mothers allow a sexual relationship. Where is the data for this?
-"In any case, sensual/sexual feelings are natural between birth mothers and their children, both male and female, between fathers and daughters, and between siblings." The author feels that these feelings should be discussed within families.
-People can be hypnotized into remembering attempted abortions.
-A child who spent her first ten months of life with her mother in prison would have been better off there than in "a beautiful room, in an expensive home, in an exclusive neighborhood" with an adoptive family.
-Any separation at all from the birth mother in the early stages of life (adoption, incubators, day care) causes "trauma" to children.
-A mother who chooses to collect welfare and stay home for three years with her child is courageous and putting her child's needs first. (I am not being judgmental about anyone who needs to be on welfare. I am disagreeing that a woman who chooses to work during the first three years of her child's life is traumatizing her child and should choose poverty rather than "abandon" her child.)
-Regarding surrogacy, "A woman who gives birth to a baby is the mother of that baby, not a surrogate mother. The surrogate mother is the substitute mother, the one who acts in place of the mother, or in this case, the adoptive mother for whom the misnamed 'surrogate' is giving birth."
I could go on with more examples, but overall, the author seems to pick and choose stories from her research that fit her views. If you interview hundreds of people involved in the adoption process, of course you will find stories that fit any preconceived notion, good or bad, that you have. Also, her word choice comes across as black and white. "Adoptees will feel trauma..." instead of "Many adoptees feel trauma..."
And some of her word choice is simply downright offensive. She writes about "relinquished children" and "being abandoned." Considering she is an adoptive mother herself, I'm appalled by the fact that she calls any woman who did not physically give birth to their child "substitute mothers." She also uses the antiquated language "real mother" when referring to birth mothers. I consider the women who feed, educate, console, hug, discipline, play with, worry about, and love their children to be "real mothers."
So while I do agree with some of the author's main points, there is just too much in this book that is not backed up by data as opposed to anecdotes and too much offensive language for me to recommend this book. In fact, it scares me to think of prospective adoptive or birth parents reading this. Verrier paints a bleak picture that could result in decisions not to adopt or not to place a child for adoption in cases where children would clearly benefit from the opposite decision.
It remains to be seen if my son will agree with the author once he's old enough to read this. I certainly hope for his sake that he doesn't.
However, I will readily admit that I don't buy into the fairy tale that all three sides of the adoption triad (child, birth parents, adoptive parents) come out of the process with sunshine and rainbows, no pain, and skip off into their beautiful futures. So I will agree with the author on the following:
-Parenting adopted children is different from parenting biological children.
-All parents involved should take the decision to adopt/place a child for adoption very seriously.
-Adopted children should never be made to feel as though they should be grateful for having been adopted.
-Adopted children will most likely experience sadness or disappointment that their birth parents could not raise them.
-Secrets should never be kept from adopted children.
-It's healthy for anyone to want to know about their biological family/heritage, and adoptive parents should do everything they can to support their children with finding birth families.
Unfortunately, there were many ideas with which I did not agree:
-When adopted children reunite with birth families, there is often a sexual attraction between mother and child, and some mothers allow a sexual relationship. Where is the data for this?
-"In any case, sensual/sexual feelings are natural between birth mothers and their children, both male and female, between fathers and daughters, and between siblings." The author feels that these feelings should be discussed within families.
-People can be hypnotized into remembering attempted abortions.
-A child who spent her first ten months of life with her mother in prison would have been better off there than in "a beautiful room, in an expensive home, in an exclusive neighborhood" with an adoptive family.
-Any separation at all from the birth mother in the early stages of life (adoption, incubators, day care) causes "trauma" to children.
-A mother who chooses to collect welfare and stay home for three years with her child is courageous and putting her child's needs first. (I am not being judgmental about anyone who needs to be on welfare. I am disagreeing that a woman who chooses to work during the first three years of her child's life is traumatizing her child and should choose poverty rather than "abandon" her child.)
-Regarding surrogacy, "A woman who gives birth to a baby is the mother of that baby, not a surrogate mother. The surrogate mother is the substitute mother, the one who acts in place of the mother, or in this case, the adoptive mother for whom the misnamed 'surrogate' is giving birth."
I could go on with more examples, but overall, the author seems to pick and choose stories from her research that fit her views. If you interview hundreds of people involved in the adoption process, of course you will find stories that fit any preconceived notion, good or bad, that you have. Also, her word choice comes across as black and white. "Adoptees will feel trauma..." instead of "Many adoptees feel trauma..."
And some of her word choice is simply downright offensive. She writes about "relinquished children" and "being abandoned." Considering she is an adoptive mother herself, I'm appalled by the fact that she calls any woman who did not physically give birth to their child "substitute mothers." She also uses the antiquated language "real mother" when referring to birth mothers. I consider the women who feed, educate, console, hug, discipline, play with, worry about, and love their children to be "real mothers."
So while I do agree with some of the author's main points, there is just too much in this book that is not backed up by data as opposed to anecdotes and too much offensive language for me to recommend this book. In fact, it scares me to think of prospective adoptive or birth parents reading this. Verrier paints a bleak picture that could result in decisions not to adopt or not to place a child for adoption in cases where children would clearly benefit from the opposite decision.
It remains to be seen if my son will agree with the author once he's old enough to read this. I certainly hope for his sake that he doesn't.
July 11, 2010
I read this in '93 when I was searching for my birth family. Found them but was too late to meet my birth mother. Later identified my birth father, who was different than my legal father at the time, and know my half-sister who doesn't acknowledge me as such. There is always a tangled story when it comes to birth and adoption...I was blessed to be adoped to the wonderful parents that raised me...(-:
Looking at this over ten years later, I realize there were many things about myself that I couldn't see written in this book. They were too deep for my wounded soul to realize but am now glimpsing into them and am happy to be brave enough to look again. There is so much to learn. Maybe it is time to really look for my siblings...even if they are half-siblings like the one I know, maybe they will be interested in knowing me. One can wonder and hope there will be insight.
Looking at this over ten years later, I realize there were many things about myself that I couldn't see written in this book. They were too deep for my wounded soul to realize but am now glimpsing into them and am happy to be brave enough to look again. There is so much to learn. Maybe it is time to really look for my siblings...even if they are half-siblings like the one I know, maybe they will be interested in knowing me. One can wonder and hope there will be insight.
September 15, 2007
more about myself than i wanted to know...j/k :) this book was powerful because it validated and put words to feelings i have always had but never been able to fully express.
May 30, 2021
Phenomenal.
It’s a bit long and bogged down, so I read the summaries and then went back into certain sections of the chapter where I wanted to go deeper.
I wish I had read this years ago.
Long before this book I came to the opinion (based on reading numerous studies and books around adoption and abortion) that adoption is terrible and cruel—it is exploitation and trauma. More importantly, That if we really care about that baby then we must stop the lie “let them have a better life” because they won’t. They will have a different life but not a better one.
I know this is unsavory.
This book, along with books such as the turn away study and American Baby, highlight two things based on decades and decades of research:
#1 we must provide support for mothers who want to keep their babies and help them keep their babies no matter what.
#2 we must provide safe abortions for mothers who don’t want to keep their babies.
#3 if a child is orphaned, and adoption is the only option, there must be social systems in place for the child to have lifelong therapy (and the adopted family needs it too) and we must have educational and training requirements for the adopted “parents” far in excess of the weekend “trainings” we currently do.
If you love the baby or care about the baby (eg pro life) these are the truths — they are bitter. They are ugly. But yet this is the truest fact of adoption: sending that baby to adoptive parents is going to harm him and her in ways you cannot understand or imagine (unless you are adopted) and the damage will affect them for all of their life. Adoption is pain. I’m anti adoption despite having a fairly good “story” and “happy ending”
It’s a bit long and bogged down, so I read the summaries and then went back into certain sections of the chapter where I wanted to go deeper.
I wish I had read this years ago.
Long before this book I came to the opinion (based on reading numerous studies and books around adoption and abortion) that adoption is terrible and cruel—it is exploitation and trauma. More importantly, That if we really care about that baby then we must stop the lie “let them have a better life” because they won’t. They will have a different life but not a better one.
I know this is unsavory.
This book, along with books such as the turn away study and American Baby, highlight two things based on decades and decades of research:
#1 we must provide support for mothers who want to keep their babies and help them keep their babies no matter what.
#2 we must provide safe abortions for mothers who don’t want to keep their babies.
#3 if a child is orphaned, and adoption is the only option, there must be social systems in place for the child to have lifelong therapy (and the adopted family needs it too) and we must have educational and training requirements for the adopted “parents” far in excess of the weekend “trainings” we currently do.
If you love the baby or care about the baby (eg pro life) these are the truths — they are bitter. They are ugly. But yet this is the truest fact of adoption: sending that baby to adoptive parents is going to harm him and her in ways you cannot understand or imagine (unless you are adopted) and the damage will affect them for all of their life. Adoption is pain. I’m anti adoption despite having a fairly good “story” and “happy ending”
February 2, 2018
Her idea that separating a child from their birth is traumatic no matter what is very intriguing. However her style was a struggle for me. She mixes making statements that sound like they are from clinical studies with new age comments and statements. It was hard to parse out the data from her opinion. It would have helped a lot if in addition to the references listed in the back some of her statements cited specific studies.
November 4, 2024
This is a Text and a half…rare that I encounter a book that I find both so usefully challenging and so objectionable.
I’m not an adoptee or a parent; I read this book because I was curious and concerned about contemporary discussions around adoption, and the way they can reify the ‘rightness’ of the ‘biological’ family. Which this book does, and which I really disagree with. But the idea of pre-memory and pre-language separation trauma interests me a lot; it’s inconvenient for my personal philosophy of family, but it makes sense for pregnancy to form a specific kind of preconscious bond, and I’m happy with following a care ethic around children that doesn’t assume that babies can’t be lastingly hurt. What I’m not fine with is the idea that the pregnancy bond is The Bond, that all other bonds are false or meagre by comparison (and that the breakage of that bond is the ‘worst thing that will ever happen’ to an adoptee!), and I think the book is stuck in that framing, often slipping into ‘real mother’ vs ‘substitute mother’ language.
There’s also the matter of the constant assumptions about what ‘mothering’ means, and that reproduction and womanhood are completely imbricated, to the point that the book gets into pro-life territory as well as ‘we should be encouraging abstinence education’ territory…(I don’t even think abortion should rest on the bedrock of ‘foetuses aren’t alive’, but her rhetoric implies that you’d basically get lifelong trauma from a delayed period). The author’s work with adult adoptees slants her perspective towards adoption being damning and life-defining, to the point that all biofamily trouble is secondary if you can keep bio-ties intact; all I can say is a lot of non-adoptees I know have the same problems the adoptees in this book do. Having a family is often traumatic; shame that not having one is more so.
I’m not an adoptee or a parent; I read this book because I was curious and concerned about contemporary discussions around adoption, and the way they can reify the ‘rightness’ of the ‘biological’ family. Which this book does, and which I really disagree with. But the idea of pre-memory and pre-language separation trauma interests me a lot; it’s inconvenient for my personal philosophy of family, but it makes sense for pregnancy to form a specific kind of preconscious bond, and I’m happy with following a care ethic around children that doesn’t assume that babies can’t be lastingly hurt. What I’m not fine with is the idea that the pregnancy bond is The Bond, that all other bonds are false or meagre by comparison (and that the breakage of that bond is the ‘worst thing that will ever happen’ to an adoptee!), and I think the book is stuck in that framing, often slipping into ‘real mother’ vs ‘substitute mother’ language.
There’s also the matter of the constant assumptions about what ‘mothering’ means, and that reproduction and womanhood are completely imbricated, to the point that the book gets into pro-life territory as well as ‘we should be encouraging abstinence education’ territory…(I don’t even think abortion should rest on the bedrock of ‘foetuses aren’t alive’, but her rhetoric implies that you’d basically get lifelong trauma from a delayed period). The author’s work with adult adoptees slants her perspective towards adoption being damning and life-defining, to the point that all biofamily trouble is secondary if you can keep bio-ties intact; all I can say is a lot of non-adoptees I know have the same problems the adoptees in this book do. Having a family is often traumatic; shame that not having one is more so.
January 8, 2013
As an adoptee, this was such an eye opener for me and explained so much of my behaviour that I'd never considered adoption-related.
Every adoptee should read this at least once.
Every adoptee should read this at least once.
July 6, 2017
I was adopted at birth, and I am the father of a child adopted at 5 months. This book is fucking garbage and the author is doing incredible harm to the wonderful experience that is adoption. If one had no personal experience with adoption, they would be so frightened of adopting a child, and would think that adoptees are permanently mentally damaged to the point of severe mental illness just because they were adopted. I'm sorry she has had a difficult time with her adoption experience, but she is making sweeping generalizations from a small sample size, using radically unscientific methods to reach her conclusions. Shame on her.
January 11, 2013
I think that every adopted child should read this book. Even when you feel like you've "worked through it all" there are things that linger you never knew stemmed from your initial Primal Wound.
July 28, 2019
This is the most ridiculous piece of rubbish, that attempts to prey on adoptive parents wondering if there is something important they should know of their children's experience. It is a dramatic claim that all adopted children are basically shells reeling from the worst trauma imaginable, the devastating cleave from the birth mother. I was open to there being bad news and, of course, separation from the birth parents is a loss that they carry with them, but there is nothing to back up her claims of utter lifelong devastation. She just quotes her 14 year old daughter's complaints to her and, if that's the psychological yardstick we are using, children raised by their birth parents are no better off.
May 7, 2012
As both a birth mother and an adoptive mother, I found this book emotionally wrenching. Reading it did make me feel less alone, however, as it helped me to understand that the behaviors and personality quirks with which my now-adult adopted son has struggled are common in adopted children. I just wish I had known enough to read this when he was a confused, adopted teen-ager. I highly recommend this book to any adoptive parent. And to professionals -- such as psychotherapists, guidance counsellors, teachers, clergy -- who seek to help adopted kids, this is a must-read!
May 1, 2021
This book reads like a New Age harbinger of doom.
The book has virtually no supported science (if it does, it isn't cited and data/numbers are not provided).
She frequently cites "most adoptees" without providing critical data. Ideas such as adoptees feeling like they don't fit in with their family or fantasizing about another family (even before they know they are adopted) are provided as solid evidence that the child, on some level, still remembers being removed from their biological mother. No data is provided (what percent of the adoptees she interviewed? What percent of non-adopted children also feel like they don't fit in, or fantasize about another family?). At one point, she quotes from an adoptee who frequently fantasizes that he has a twin. She hypothesizes that he may indeed be remembering a twin, from whom he was separated at birth.
She observes that of the adoptees she interviewed (How did she find them? Were they all adopted at birth, or removed by the state when they were older?), a "majority" would choose to search for the mother, if they *had* to pick between just finding the biological mom or biological dad. What percent is this majority?
This theme of "mother only" is hammered in throughout the book - the connection and the primal wound come from the mother. The father is incidental, unnecessary, irrelevant. Between the New Age sentiments and this mother ONLY messaging, it feels like it was written in the 70s, not in 1993.
Instead, she uses anecdotal stories and intuition to arrive at her conclusions: "As a biological mother, I can know [the primal wound] through my own intuition and experience, a knowing which is not always observable by anyone else."
She also claims that "some psychologists" (no citation) believe young children up to age 3 can remember their own birth, and past that age, hypnosis can retrieve the memories. As supporting evidence, she states, "There have been reports made to me by adoptive mothers that upon hearing their toddlers crying at night they have been unable to comfort them and have been told, 'I want my mommy.'" The implication here is that these toddlers were adopted at birth, and possibly have not been told yet that they were adopted. Toddlers - even biological children raised in healthy biological families - say extremely creepy things sometimes. I can't see "reports from mothers" (how many? what percent? did they talk about adoption frequently with their toddlers?) providing any evidence that a child adopted at birth in a closed adoption remembers their biological family.
The only time she uses any reserve or questions the adoptee in any way is when an adoptee says they have no problems with being adopted. They are well-adjusted, love their adoptive family, and do not desire to seek out their biological mother. In this case, obviously, the adoptee must be in denial and deeply repressing their trauma.
She also goes further, suggesting that a primal wound can be caused by infants who spent time in the NICU apart from their mothers, or children whose mothers worked for the first few years of their life, instead of staying home.
Finally, for a book written in 1993 about adoption and the "primal wound" of losing the mother, of 33 sources referenced, the median age of a source is about 1974.4 (almost 20 years prior to her publishing date). Only 4 sources were published within 5 years of her book.
At this point, it's difficult to tell if the quotes and references to her sources come from authors who support the idea that an adopted child has a primal wound, or that mothers should stay at home and care for their babies instead of working outside the home. She quotes Donald Winnicott, whose reference dates to 1966:
"There is something about the mother of a baby, something which makes her particularly suited to the protection of her infant in this state of vulnerability and which makes her able to contribute positively to the baby's positive needs."
This book is full of "intuition" and fear-mongering. I accept that adoption can cause trauma, and if the child feels trauma, a crisis of identity, or other challenges, these must be addressed. I do not think this book should ever be recommended as a resource for adoptive parents or adoptees.
The book has virtually no supported science (if it does, it isn't cited and data/numbers are not provided).
She frequently cites "most adoptees" without providing critical data. Ideas such as adoptees feeling like they don't fit in with their family or fantasizing about another family (even before they know they are adopted) are provided as solid evidence that the child, on some level, still remembers being removed from their biological mother. No data is provided (what percent of the adoptees she interviewed? What percent of non-adopted children also feel like they don't fit in, or fantasize about another family?). At one point, she quotes from an adoptee who frequently fantasizes that he has a twin. She hypothesizes that he may indeed be remembering a twin, from whom he was separated at birth.
She observes that of the adoptees she interviewed (How did she find them? Were they all adopted at birth, or removed by the state when they were older?), a "majority" would choose to search for the mother, if they *had* to pick between just finding the biological mom or biological dad. What percent is this majority?
This theme of "mother only" is hammered in throughout the book - the connection and the primal wound come from the mother. The father is incidental, unnecessary, irrelevant. Between the New Age sentiments and this mother ONLY messaging, it feels like it was written in the 70s, not in 1993.
Instead, she uses anecdotal stories and intuition to arrive at her conclusions: "As a biological mother, I can know [the primal wound] through my own intuition and experience, a knowing which is not always observable by anyone else."
She also claims that "some psychologists" (no citation) believe young children up to age 3 can remember their own birth, and past that age, hypnosis can retrieve the memories. As supporting evidence, she states, "There have been reports made to me by adoptive mothers that upon hearing their toddlers crying at night they have been unable to comfort them and have been told, 'I want my mommy.'" The implication here is that these toddlers were adopted at birth, and possibly have not been told yet that they were adopted. Toddlers - even biological children raised in healthy biological families - say extremely creepy things sometimes. I can't see "reports from mothers" (how many? what percent? did they talk about adoption frequently with their toddlers?) providing any evidence that a child adopted at birth in a closed adoption remembers their biological family.
The only time she uses any reserve or questions the adoptee in any way is when an adoptee says they have no problems with being adopted. They are well-adjusted, love their adoptive family, and do not desire to seek out their biological mother. In this case, obviously, the adoptee must be in denial and deeply repressing their trauma.
She also goes further, suggesting that a primal wound can be caused by infants who spent time in the NICU apart from their mothers, or children whose mothers worked for the first few years of their life, instead of staying home.
Finally, for a book written in 1993 about adoption and the "primal wound" of losing the mother, of 33 sources referenced, the median age of a source is about 1974.4 (almost 20 years prior to her publishing date). Only 4 sources were published within 5 years of her book.
At this point, it's difficult to tell if the quotes and references to her sources come from authors who support the idea that an adopted child has a primal wound, or that mothers should stay at home and care for their babies instead of working outside the home. She quotes Donald Winnicott, whose reference dates to 1966:
"There is something about the mother of a baby, something which makes her particularly suited to the protection of her infant in this state of vulnerability and which makes her able to contribute positively to the baby's positive needs."
This book is full of "intuition" and fear-mongering. I accept that adoption can cause trauma, and if the child feels trauma, a crisis of identity, or other challenges, these must be addressed. I do not think this book should ever be recommended as a resource for adoptive parents or adoptees.
May 21, 2016
As an adoptive mom I think it was my responsibility to read this book. And I want to preface this review with saying that I am glad that I did and I went into it ready to hear about the impact of adoption on my girls and the negatives attached to being adopted. I know full well that adoption is never the best choice for kids and I have very mixed feelings about adoption in general.
That said, this book was not the masterpiece I was hoping for. I've heard people say such great things about it, but to me, it seemed inflammatory and anecdotal, which is definitely one of my least favorite combinations. Do I think that some (or even all adoptees) suffer because they've been separated from their birth families? Yes. Do I believe that one adoptees experience = all adoptees experience? No.
Perhaps I don't know enough about Verrier - maybe she's been in practice with lots of adoptees and this book doesn't demonstrate that. But from my perspective she drew on a handful of experiences to try to classify and describe an experience that a uniquely personal one.
WHich leaves me scratching my head because I don't know what I expected her to do. But whathever it was, this wasn't it.
All that said, I do know that many adoptees connect with her writing and so perhaps she really has hit the nail on the head. I just don't know.
That said, this book was not the masterpiece I was hoping for. I've heard people say such great things about it, but to me, it seemed inflammatory and anecdotal, which is definitely one of my least favorite combinations. Do I think that some (or even all adoptees) suffer because they've been separated from their birth families? Yes. Do I believe that one adoptees experience = all adoptees experience? No.
Perhaps I don't know enough about Verrier - maybe she's been in practice with lots of adoptees and this book doesn't demonstrate that. But from my perspective she drew on a handful of experiences to try to classify and describe an experience that a uniquely personal one.
WHich leaves me scratching my head because I don't know what I expected her to do. But whathever it was, this wasn't it.
All that said, I do know that many adoptees connect with her writing and so perhaps she really has hit the nail on the head. I just don't know.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 13, 2020
I can't even be a good adoptee.
This is like the adoptee's bible. It's one of the most recommended books in the groups I belong to. Some of it rang true. But it rang true like horoscopes ring true.
Then Ms Verrier wrote that under hypnosis that people remember attempted abortions upon them.
She wrote this at the very end of the book... And all that came before fell like a demolished building.
This is like the adoptee's bible. It's one of the most recommended books in the groups I belong to. Some of it rang true. But it rang true like horoscopes ring true.
Then Ms Verrier wrote that under hypnosis that people remember attempted abortions upon them.
She wrote this at the very end of the book... And all that came before fell like a demolished building.
August 11, 2015
This is an insightful and intense book for an adoptee wanting to understand him or herself. Also good for those that love an adoptee to help you understand some of the "issues" that arise for some adoptees.
March 22, 2011
Very interesting theory on something I always wondered about--why adopted kids, even those adopted as newborns right from the hospital, have such struggles.
January 20, 2016
The best book about adoption that I have read.
January 23, 2008
the most difficult book i'll never finish. it's also another book i tend to give away a lot, mostly so i won't feel guilty for not getting past page 33.
April 18, 2008
A must-read for any adopted kid or parent of an adopted kid. It explains many reasons that adopted kids do some of the things they do. And it can help both the adoptee and the adopter understand why their parent/child relationship is so different from those who were raised by their biological families. This book was by far one of the best books I've ever read.
March 20, 2009
A highly enlightening, partly devastating look into the minds of adopted children. I highly recommend this book if you know someone who is adopted and can't seem to figure out why they act the way they do sometimes. I also recommend it for adopted children but please be sure to have someone you can talk to.
June 23, 2014
Seems that whatever child one adopts, that child will be permanently scarred, and the adoptive parens (adoptive mother especially) will never quite be able to fully bond and having a loving relationship with her child. (And furthermore, sending the kid to daycare, regardless of circumstances and necessity, is horrendously detrimental.)
Read
February 28, 2024Very eye-opening, I am so glad I have this on my shelf to occasionally revisit as needed.
Note: I will not be giving this a rating as I personally am not comfortable rating books that are self-help or giving information, especially when I have no personal knowledge in the subject.
Note: I will not be giving this a rating as I personally am not comfortable rating books that are self-help or giving information, especially when I have no personal knowledge in the subject.
January 6, 2018
I'm ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, I think it would be most insightful guide for anyone considering adoption or for any adoptee who decides to search for their birthmother. In anticipating and preparing for the many milestones, unsuspected pitfalls, conflicts and resolutions that accompany these actions, Ms. Vedder offers thoughtful and intuitive suggestions. That being said, I have several caveats. First, this is printed for the author at a commercial press; it is apparently not peer-reviewed by colleagues or fellow professionals, and there are no endorsements on the back cover or within, which makes its conclusions solely the author's own, and not necessarily supported by others in her community. Secondly, the author's conclusions focus solely on adoption as a "primal wound," a suppressed trauma that enacts a toll, subconsciously, on the adoptee's character development and behavior. It seems to disregard the notion that birth, generally, is described as traumatic for any newborn, hence the clinical term infantile or childhood amnesia. No one, really, recalls in utero or birth experiences, whether adopted or not. Subsequently, few other factors, such as parenting style, religious upbringing, divorce and remarriage, are considered as consequential in the emotional maturation of the adoptee; well-adjusted adoptees, since they probably don't speak to Ms. Vedder in therapy, are left out of the conversation entirely. In short, I find her conclusions one-sided, and, although she cites the published work of others, her own conclusions remain unsupported by other therapists, pediatricians, or psychologists, despite the fact that this book is on its 24th printing.
May 7, 2022
As an adoptive mother, I was informed this is a must-read and "the Bible for adoptive families". It's not. The research, if any, is very outdated and restricted to the Western world. The adoption process, family structure, societal support is very very different in India and the research done by the author falls woefully short of addressing adoption outside of her country.
A recurring issue that irked me throughout the book is the startling absence of any quantified statements. It's always "most adoptees I spoke to" or "some adoptees". How many? Was it so tough to give the number or even a percentage? Especially when the author claims this book is based on primary and secondary research and that it's the first work of its kind on adoption?
She also mentions multiple times that adoptive parents must "examine their motives" for adoption. This was rather confusing because at no point is it made clear which motives are acceptable.
Lastly, 4/5th of the book is dedicated to how all adoptees are "broken" in a sense and the section on healing is grossly inadequate. Apparently reunion with the birth mother is the only way to reconcile and start healing from this wound. The majority of adoptions in India are cases where there is no available information on the birth families as the children have been abandoned or surrendered anonymously. So according to the author there is no hope for all of these adoptees.
Would not recommend to adoptive families outside of the developed world.
A recurring issue that irked me throughout the book is the startling absence of any quantified statements. It's always "most adoptees I spoke to" or "some adoptees". How many? Was it so tough to give the number or even a percentage? Especially when the author claims this book is based on primary and secondary research and that it's the first work of its kind on adoption?
She also mentions multiple times that adoptive parents must "examine their motives" for adoption. This was rather confusing because at no point is it made clear which motives are acceptable.
Lastly, 4/5th of the book is dedicated to how all adoptees are "broken" in a sense and the section on healing is grossly inadequate. Apparently reunion with the birth mother is the only way to reconcile and start healing from this wound. The majority of adoptions in India are cases where there is no available information on the birth families as the children have been abandoned or surrendered anonymously. So according to the author there is no hope for all of these adoptees.
Would not recommend to adoptive families outside of the developed world.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 237 reviews