Working with Adoptive Parents

Practical techniques for guiding parents through the stages of adoption and beyond

Editors Virginia Brabender and April Fallon are clinical psychologists and also adoptive parents whose families are acquainted with both the uncertainty and joy of adoption. In Working with Adoptive Parents, they offer an in-depth treatment of the distinctive needs, feelings, impulses, expectations, and conflicts that adoptive parents experience through the stages of adoption and beyond. This volume offers a comprehensive picture of adoption through an exploration of the experiences and developmental processes of the adoptive parent.

Featuring contributions from mental health professionals whose careers have focused on work with families through the adoption process, this unique book:

• Covers the theory, research, and practice of adoptive parenting throughout the life cycle
• Explores the issues unique to the adoptive mother and adoptive father as they traverse the stages of parenting
• Offers a close look at families with special needs children
• Acknowledges and explores the great diversity among adoptive families and the kinship networks in which they are embedded
• Examines attachment issues between adoptive parent and child

Providing a framework for therapists to conceptualize their work with adoptive parents, Working with Adoptive Parents clarifies and facilitates the journey that many of these families face.

VIRGINIA M. BRABENDER, PhD, diplomate in clinical psychology (ABPP) and APA Fellow, is a professor at the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology at Widener University. She is the past president of the Society for Personality Assessment.

APRIL E. FALLON, PhD, is a member of the psychology faculty at Fielding Graduate University and an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Drexel University College of Medicine. She has received numerous awards for her teaching of psychiatric medical residents and was awarded the 2012 Psychiatric Educator Award by the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society.