"... så här är det bara": Adoptivföräldrars tankar och känslor om barnets bakgrund
2014 (Swedish)Independent thesis Advanced level (professional degree), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesisAlternative title
"... that´s just the way it is" : Thoughts and feelings of adoptive parents regarding the background of their children (English)
Abstract [en]
Adoptive parents need to be able to reflect on the interaction with the child, both from the perspective of their own relational experience with the child and from the perspective of the previous experience of the child. This essay explores five adoptive parent´s thoughts and feelings about their children’s background. It also looks into how they think that the children’s background influences their way of expressing their needs and how this makes the parents feel. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews which have been analyzed using thematic analysis. The thoughts and feelings around the children’s background mainly concerns how the children were taken care of prior to the adoption and the birth parents. The parents expressed feelings of sadness and sorrow regarding how the children were taken care of prior to the adoption. Thinking of how it could have been for the children gave rise to strong emotions. The parents expressed sympathy and sorrow but also rivalry, envy and anger towards the birth parents. They describe different behaviors’ and expressions that the children have and how they think that these may be related to the experiences the children had prior to the adoption. The parents describe what the children’s behaviors and expressions arouse within themselves. They tell about strong somatic and dissociative reactions, feelings of guilt, uncertainty and insufficiency. The parents also describe how the interaction with their children reminds them of painful experiences from their own childhood. The accounts show the importance of the parents´ ability to mentalise and how they think about needs that the children don´t express.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014. , p. 24
Keywords [en]
adoptive parents, adopted children´s background, thoughts, feelings, birth parents, attachment, mentalisation, intersubjectivity
Keywords [sv]
adoptivföräldrar, adopterade barns bakgrund, tankar, känslor, biologiska föräldrar, anknytning, mentalisering, intersubjektivitet
National Category
Applied Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:esh:diva-4050OAI: oai:DiVA.org:esh-4050DiVA, id: diva2:748868
Educational program
Psykoterapeutprogrammet
Uppsok
Social and Behavioural Science, Law
Supervisors
2014-10-012014-09-222014-10-01Bibliographically approved