The Family of Adoption - Softcover

Pavao, Joyce Maguire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807028010 ISBN 13: 9780807028018

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 1998

Synopsis

Pioneering family and adoption therapist Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao is the first to demonstrate that there are predictable and understandable developmental stages and challenges for adopted people. Through stories of work with children and families, she shows us that adoptive parents, as well as teachers, therapists, and all who work with children must come to understand these developmental stages as normal—challenging, but normal. The Family of Adoption is a timely and powerful argument for the right kind of "openness" within adoptive families.

"The Family of Adoption, Pavao's insightful, informative, and at times very moving look at adoption from all sides, remains true to her premise that 'at the bottom of each and every adoption—no matter which kind—for all of the birth and adoptive parents, is a child.'"
—Diane Daniel, The Boston Globe
"Pavao's own adoption and years of experience as a psychologist working with adoption issues enables her to offer practical advice, a unique and empathetic understanding, and wise counsel."
—Marian Wright Edelman, president, the Children's Defense Fund
"Many have written about adoption. Few have Joyce Maguire Pavao's unique combination of personal experience, professional expertise and eloquent voice. She . . . offers us new insights and understanding. Her stories . . . have an authenticity that is invaluable."
—Annette Baran, coauthor of Adoption Triangle and Lethal Secrets
"A commitment to placing the best interests of the child first informs every page of this excellent study."
—Publishers Weekly

About this title

Review

Joyce Maguire Pavao dedicates her book The Family of Adoption in part to her two mothers, who died two weeks apart. "They both died of secrecy," she writes. "One could no longer talk, silenced by her disease. One could no longer think or remember.... I love and cherish what each of my mothers endured and imparted.... I refuse to have secrets and I work to change a system that perpetrates them."

Pavao is a nationally known family and adoption therapist who works with adoptive children and their families. Her authority and insight come from her combined experience both as a professional therapist and as an adopted child. In The Family of Adoption, Pavao describes the grief processes, dilemmas, and potentials for healing of birth mothers and adoptive parents. A strong advocate for adopted children, she discusses the difference between secrecy and privacy--a crucial distinction in adoption--and lends a strong voice to the movement for openness. Pavao is the first specialist to clearly identify and demonstrate predictable, understandable developmental stages and challenges for every adoptee (pointing out, for example, that adopted children tend to daydream, and may have a more challenging adolescence), and elucidates patterns that adoptive parents may witness as their children grow.

As adoption becomes more discussed and less taboo, the emotional road maps become clearer for adoptive families, birth mothers, and children of adoption. The Family of Adoption is a gentle, essential addition to the literature that will help guide families of adoption along the path. --Ericka Lutz

About the Author

Joyce Maguire Pavao, founder of the Adoption Resource Canter in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also the CEO of Center for Family Connections in Cambridge and New York. She is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has lectured at Smith, Wellesley, UCLA, USC, and Antioch, among other universities.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0807028010
• ISBN 13: 9780807028018
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 138