Better than a Box of Kleenex by Mary Peret

Better than a Box of Kleenex:

Empowering Adoptees in Support Group Environments

I’m not a therapist. I don’t even play one on TV. Eight years experience being deeply involved in adoption search and reform issues, however, has given me plenty on which to base firmly held beliefs about what kind of support is available to adoptees and what forms of support are more empowering and useful than others.

If you’ve been involved in this issue for any period of time, you have seen the gamut. Abandonment issues, identity issues, bad reunions, good reunions, anger, peace, gratitude, resentment, abusive adoptive parents, fabulous adoptive parents, low self esteem, high self esteem – you name it. And yet of all of the people I’ve met both online and in person, none have had more impact on me than those who consistently deal with whatever adoption issues they might have with dignity and empowerment. I look to these individuals as standard bearers for a different and better kind of support in our community.

Having an issue does not excuse one from living one's life responsibly. It does not excuse bad behavior towards others. It is not a call to sit in endless therapy sessions weeping one's way through uncountable boxes of Kleenex. Having an issue is an opportunity for personal growth. I certainly do not discount the advantages of good therapy here. By good therapy, I mean with a therapist who has eyes on helping you move forward, not keeping you on their couch every week for the next ten years while you help fund their next Saab and their children’s college education.

It is possible to use the support group environment to move forward through adoptee issues into healthy acceptance, understanding and balance. I would like to see the phrase “support group” become a less denigrated term in adoption reform. In order for this to happen we need to see improvements over the prevailing support group setting and create environments to empower adoptees, not keep them in perpetual grief and loss. The difference between an individual who is dealing with her issues in a healthy way and one who is not can be monumental.

Adoptees (or anyone else) who look to outsiders (family members, birth or adoptive, significant others) for validation, often have the most difficult time dealing with their issues. They haven’t learned to listen to their internal radar, or even to trust it. They overlook emotions and feelings that seem obvious to the rest of us, and thus these folks will likely spend a good part of their lives seeking external validation for their existence, and they will end up spending a good part of their time being disappointed. Therefore, the support group environment should not attempt to be the sole source of validation. It should, instead, seek to focus the individual's search for validation inward, and affirm what the adoptee already knows about herself.

A support group should not be an environment where its primary or only use is an emotional outlet. The goal should be to provide a place that helps group members improve their quality of life and emotional health. While having an outlet is part of this process, it is not the sole means. I believe it is more than possible to acknowledge a person’s feelings in such a way as to assist him to move through and past them.

To be specific, I believe this involves the following steps:

1. Identifying the root feeling causing the problem

2. Identifying how the person would feel if the situation were magically “fixed.”

3. Acknowledging the past, and recognizing that it cannot be changed

4. Seeking realistic courses of action, discussing specific goals and encouraging new patterns of behavior, geared not toward changing others but toward allowing the individual to see the filters through which they view the world, to understand the processes that trigger extreme reactions and to focus on ways to alter their reactions when situations arise which trigger them

5. Encouraging them to accept a “less than perfect” world in which people make mistakes and in which unfair and hurtful situations arise, and encouraging them to make peace with what they cannot change

6. Teaching them to validate themselves internally, to learn to read and trust their true selves and to rely on their innate sense of right and wrong in considering their own behavior and actions

7. Encouraging them to take responsibility for their own actions and to not try to control the actions of others

People have the resources inside themselves to cope with their unique issues. They don’t need to be told how to feel, but what they do need is some objective help in finding the method of coping and growing that works best for them.

There are, of course, cases where a true mental health professional is required. Cases involving serious mental disorders are not appropriately dealt with in a non-professional environment. The support group environment or mailing list should never be used as a substitute for appropriate professional assistance.

Support group leaders should always encourage responsible behavior and personal growth in those who attend their groups. To do less is irresponsible and potentially harmful to the participants in the group. Extraordinarily poor or abusive behavior should not be tolerated in the support group environment, and all group participants should be requested to abide by standards of behavior in regards to they way they treat other group members. Group participants should not be encouraged to remain mired in unresolved issues indefinitely; leaders and other group members should instead focus on helping them to realize solutions.

In this way, we empower adoptees. Empowered adoptees make good activists. They make credible witnesses for the media, persuasive voices to testify to legislatures and excellent lobbyists. When we provide appropriate support environments, we can help create a greater pool of activists for the organizations that need them.

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Mary Peret is the program director for the Terminal Illness Emergency Search Program and the co-founder of OASIS (Organization for Adoptees, Search and Individual Support). She reconnected with her birthmother and siblings in 1996. Mary lives in New Jersey.

(This feature appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)