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Adoption and the ownership of children

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Abstract

Adoption has traditionally served infants, but an increasing number of children today come to adoption from divorce and remarriage and from foster placement. Many of these children are well out of infancy and have memories of and even existing relationships with persons from their past. A sense of continuity is clearly important to a child's development. The biological parents' serving as an object of projection by the adoptive family and an object of mystery and fascination by the adoptive child are well known sources of clinical problems. These phenomena might exert less influence if some kind of contact between all three parties were maintained. Suggestions for changing adoption policy open the door to potentially destructive relationships and loyalty conflicts. On the other hand, there are reasonable questions as to how well current practices serve all children. It is time to further our understanding of the effects of current practice so that adoption might optimally meet the needs of these young people.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Virginia Medical Center, 22908, Charlottesville, Va.

    Andre P. Derdeyn M.D. (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics Director)

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  1. Andre P. Derdeyn M.D.
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Derdeyn, A.P. Adoption and the ownership of children. Child Psych Hum Dev 9, 215–226 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01433697

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