Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter - Softcover

Lifton, Betty Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312187661 ISBN 13: 9780312187668

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998

Synopsis

The classic memior of Betty Jean Lifton's search for her secret past that helped open the way for so many others.

Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adtoped that have helped open the field, tells her own story of growing up adtoped in the closed adoption system. Calling Twice Born both an autobiography and a psychological journey into the past, Lifton takes the reader with her as she describes the loneliness and islolation of an adopted child cut off from the knowledge of her heritage. She explores the ambivalence and guilt that she feels toward her adoptive parents when she awakens as an adult to her need to ask: Who am I?

With the mounting suspense of a detective novel, Twice Born explores not only the difficulty of searching for one's past when one's records are sealed, but also the complexity of trying to reunite with the birth mother from whom one has been separated by social taboos--and by time.

More than a vivid and poinant memior, Lifton has given hs a story of mothering and mother-loss attachment and bonding, secrets and lies, and the human need for origins. Important reading for anyone touched by these issues and by the experience of adoption--which is everyone.

About this title

About the Author:

Betty Jean Lifton is a writer, psychologist, and one of the nation's leading advocates for adoption reform. Her books include: Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness, Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, and The King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak. She has lectured widely, in this country and abroad, and has an adoption counseling practice in New York City.

Review:

"A personal account of the painful problems caused by the adopted child's aloneness among his or her contemporaries and the need (often supressed) to know of, even to find, the biological parents." --The New York Times Book Review

"Deeply stirring...important and enriching." --Elie Wiesel

"Twice Born is an eloquant book." --Psychology Today

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0312187661
• ISBN 13: 9780312187668
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288