Troubling Adoption : Heartbreak and Hope.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lambert, Cath.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma in children.

Adoption--Psychological aspects.

Adoption.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bristol : Policy Press, 2026.

Summary:

The permanent removal of children from their families of origin to place with another family for adoption is coming under greater critical scrutiny across the world.Policy debates and media discourse focus on the benefits of providing children with stable homes but can obscure the emotional complexities and lived realities of adoption for all.

Contents:

Front Cover

Troubling Adoption: Heartbreak and Hope

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

1 What is adoption?

Introduction

An urgent and contradictory moment

Transnational adoption: colonial legacies and the adoption-​industrial complex

Adoption in the UK

Why families struggle: is adoption a solution or part of the problem?

How (far) to trouble? Abolition, re/​form and radical re-​imagining

Conclusion and outline of the rest of the book

2 The role of archives in adoption narratives

Thinking with archives

Adoption archives: paper/​work and people

'Live' archives: life story and letterbox

Re/​creating archives: feelings, fabulations and embodiments

Conclusion

3 Developing alternative knowledges and ways of knowing

Knowing and not-​knowing: live, feminist and queer methodologies

Artistic collaboration with Vincent Dance Theatre

Art of Attachment workshops

Breathe, Trust, Connect: introducing the service

Ethnography with Breathe, Trust, Connect

Power and emotions: researching with playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy

Use of creative methods at BTC

Art of Attachment film installation analysis

4 Re-​thinking attachment theory and adoption

Attachment and brain science

Critical responses

Thinking differently with and about attachment

The Art of Attachment: thinking emotionally about attachment

Desire for absent attachments

Making life bearable: the ambivalence of damaged attachments

Taking steps: 'a bit of hope'

5 Telling adoption stories in new ways

Translating and trans/​forming stories

Words that get in the way

The Power of Words

Telling hopeful stories, or storying hope in different ways.

Embodied and movement-​based ways of telling stories

6 The emotional complexities of adoption

Establishing safety: the interconnections between emotional and practical support

Time and space, rhythm and pace

Emotional regulation and relational connection

Clinical supervision for staff: being a therapeutic service

Supporting colleagues doing front-​line work: the role of empathy

7 Interdependence in adoption policy and practice

'Ideal' families: power and responsibility?

The case for support for all families based on need

'Unsupportable families' or failures in provision of support? A social model

State as poor parent: the impact on families and social workers

Interconnection and dependencies between birth and adoptive families

8 A manifesto for change

Reform and abolition revisited

A manifesto for troubling adoption

1. Safeguard everybody

2. Take emotion seriously

3. Challenge and change the stories

4. Support all based on need

5. Re-​imagine families

6. Make adoption as open as possible

7. Enable social justice work

8. Make space and time for reflection, dialogues, alliances

Notes

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-4473-7195-X

1-4473-7197-6

9781447371977

OCLC:

1564132944