Most adoptees feel abandoned: expert

Adoption is "an unnatural process" and many people who have been adopted feel "abandoned" all their lives, says a world-renowned expert on the process.

Californian therapist Nancy Verrier, a speaker at today's national adoption conference in Christchurch, said there were many misconceptions in society about adoption.

Ms Verrier, herself an adoptive mother and author of a ground-breaking 1993 book, The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child, said it was commonly believed that adopted people "should be grateful for having been adopted".

But "a little baby would never choose to be separated from his own mother", she said.

It was not true to say that the younger you adopt, the easier it was for the child.

"No one needs their mother more than at the beginning of life when they are still psychologically connected to her."

That early separation often hard-wired the neurological system to "create a series of negative beliefs about themselves and others, and the safety of the world", said Ms Verrier.

"Most people who have been adopted feel abandoned. They have a hair-trigger for rejection because of this."

She said it was difficult for those not adopted to understand all the complexities of relinquishment and adoption.

"Separating babies and their mothers is an unnatural process that leaves a void in both mother and child, and should be done only when absolutely necessary.

"People need to understand that adoption is a complex process and has lifelong ramifications."

The conference, which is being run by the Canterbury Adoption Awareness and Education Trust, involves adopted people, birth parents, adoptive parents, midwives, social workers, counsellors, obstetricians and GPs.

The chairwoman of the trust, Julia Cantrell, said New Zealand had led the way in opening adoption records since 1985.

"Each adoption initially involves five people: the adopted person, birth mother and father, adoptive mother and father," she said.

"However, when we add siblings, grandparents, partners and children, more than 2 million New Zealanders have a direct link to adoption."

Adoption in NZ

* Adoption records were opened in 1985. This granted adopted persons a qualified right to have access to their "original birth certificate" showing the birth mother, and possibly father, rather than the adoptive parents shown on the "amended birth certificate".

* More than 103,000 NZ babies were adopted between 1940 and 1990.

- NZPA