Category: Psychology
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Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies
by Beth Syverson and Joseph Nakao; foreword by Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao
This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. According to preliminary results of a groundbreaking study out of Winston-Salem State University (final report targeted for release in 2025), adopted people are 36.7 times more likely…
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45 Days of Pushing Through: A Guided Journal
by Melissa A. Corrigan
Are you ready for a change? Like really ready? Have you battled low self-esteem, poor internal dialogue, remnants of a traumatic childhood, abusive relationship, or simply feeling a bit… lost? You have the key to unlocking a better you… right inside yourself. In your heart, your mind,…
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Let Us Be Greater: A Gentle, Guided Path to Healing for Adoptees
by Michelle Madrid
Adoption is a lifeline of support and opportunity for countless people, but it can bring challenges and emotional conditions that are often silenced or left unaddressed, including PTSD, risk of suicide, and fear of abandonment. Author Michelle Madrid has experienced these challenges as a foster…
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Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal: Migrating Toward Wholeness
by Liz DeBetta
We live in a world where conversations about trauma are becoming commonplace and adopted people are using their voices to educate the general public about the effects of maternal separation and genealogical bewilderment. But for many adult adoptees the act of speaking truth to power…
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A Fire Is Coming
by Emma Stevens
The true story of when Emma Stevens learned her new next-door neighbor was a psychologist, she innocently asked about how to find a therapist for her own issues. Dr. Carol Brenner decided to accept her as a patient. Against a backdrop of the Laguna Beach…
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Coloring & Journal Book For Adoptees With Motivational Quotes: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1
by Angel Davis; illustrated by Angie McGahey
As an adult adoptee that struggles with the seven core issues of being adopted, (loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery/control), I have created this therapeutic coloring book with motivational uplifting quotes and affirmations, original illustrations and patterns, and journaling pages to…
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Swear, Vent & Coloring Book For (very) F*cking Angry Adoptees: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1
by Angel Davis; illustrated by Angie McGahey
Why an angry sweary coloring and journal book? Because punching people in the face is frowned upon, and anger isn’t great for your overall mental and physical health if you hold on to it–so just let it all out! As an adult adoptee that struggles…
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Truth and Agency: Writing Ideas For People Who Were Adopted
by Anne Heffron
In order to feel fully rooted, it’s important to know your story. If your personal narrative starts “The day we got you,” then you are already in the gaslit land of the uprooted. It can be a struggle to feel fully human when you don’t…
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Under My Bed and Other Essays
by Jody Keisner
Jody Keisner was raised in rural Nebraska towns by a volatile father and kind but passive mother. As a young adult living alone for the first time, she began a nighttime ritual of checking under her bed each night, not sure who she was afraid…
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Voices Unheard: A Reflective Journal for Adult Adoptees
by Lisa Coppola
Adoption is based on loss, often yielding deep feelings of inner turmoil, grief, disconnection, and, at times, overwhelming fear and anxiety stemming from those old, unattended wounds. Yet it is common for the actuality of childhood relinquishment to be minimized or unheard by others who are not…
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Healing Tree: An Adoptee’s Story about Hurting, Healing, and Letting the Light Shine Through
by Danielle Gaudette
“Our adopted angel”–that’s what Danielle’s adoptive parents called her. She grew up adored, doted on, unconditionally loved. It wasn’t until she was in college that she first felt a gnawing curiosity about her roots. From time to time, she would wonder: Where did this face…
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Rooted in Adoption Journal: Adoptee Writing Prompts for Self-Reflection, Discovery, and Healing
by Veronica Breaux
This journal consists of over 50 writing prompts specially created for adoptees. The journal is divided into seven sections: Love and Relationships, Childhood Memories, Difficult Emotions, Listen to Adoptees, Adoption and the Media, Search and Reunion, and Personal Growth. Writing is a powerful way to…
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Already Enough: A Path to Self-Acceptance
by Lisa Olivera
When Lisa Olivera was just a few hours old, her birth mother abandoned her behind a rock near Muir Woods in Northern California. She was found and later adopted. Growing up, Lisa knew she was adopted. She later learned she was abandoned. Like with many…
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Goodbye Hypervigilance: Healing Adoptee Worry
by Lora K. Joy; illustrated by Laura Foote
Goodbye Hypervigilance is a true story about my experience realizing how adoption trauma had put me on high alert my entire life. My need to control things was catastrophic. Luckily, I have an adoptee competent therapist who helped me identify this old coping mechanism. My…
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NoBODY Looks Like Me: An Adoptee Experience
by Lora K. Joy; illustrated by Laura Foote
NoBODY Looks Like Me represents what it is like for an adoptee to grow up in a family where they are not genetically related to anyone. There is a longing to know where your eyes, nose and hands come from. When an adoptee decides to…
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What White Parents Should Know about Transracial Adoption: An Adoptee’s Perspective on Its History, Nuances, and Practices
by Melissa Guida-Richards
If you’re the white parent of a transracially or internationally adopted child, you may have been told that if you try your best and work your hardest, good intentions and a whole lot of love will be enough to give your child the security, attachment,…
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The Heart Of The Matter: EMDR Through An Adoptee’s Eyes
by Maya Luque with Kate Mounts
This book is a personal reflection on how EMDR Therapy helped one adoptee through a personal journey of acceptance and healing. As one of the girls adopted from China in the early 1990s, author and illustrator Maya Luque has had her life changed by EMDR…
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The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved
by Linda Hoye
We wear busyness as a badge of accomplishment and personal success. But when we use it to fill a void, being busy can become an addiction. Busyness helps us feel better—or feel nothing—but the benefit doesn’t come without cost. Adoptee Linda Hoye used it to…
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Rooted in Adoption: A Collection of Adoptee Reflections
by Veronica Breaux and Shelby Kilgore
Rooted in Adoption: A Collection of Adoptee Reflections is a collection of short narratives from those who have been adopted. Adoptees of various ages, backgrounds, and experiences were asked discuss the joys of adoption and the struggles of living a life of secrecy and lost…
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Groundbreaking Interventions: Working with Traumatized Children, Teens and Families in Foster Care and Adoption
by Jeanette Yoffe
A book of 16 interventions designed to teach new and imaginative ways for working with traumatized children in foster care and adoption and their families. Groundbreaking Interventions provides a wide variety of play-based methodologies that have been successful in working with children over the age…
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Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey
by Kelly DiBenedetto, Katie Gorczyca, and Jennifer Eckert
Meet Charlie, an adoptee who opens his heart and shares what’s on his mind through various phases as he grows up in his adoptive home. As the narrator of Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey, Charlie invites readers to see the adoption journey from the perspective…
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Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America
by Stacey Patton
Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways to teach respect and to protect black children from the streets, incarceration,…
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It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion, and Open Adoption
Edited by Brooke Randolph, MA, NCC, LMHC
The title of this book can be both inflammatory and comforting; different people need to read it different ways. The reality is that the desire for information has nothing to do with parenting or personality, but an innate desire. It’s Not About You is an…
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Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years
by Katie Naftzger
Describing the essential skills you need to help your adopted teen to confidently face the challenges of growing up, adult adoptee and family therapist Katie Naftzger shares her personal and professional wisdom. She outlines four key goals for adoptive parents: · To move from rescuing…
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The Adoption Reunion Handbook
by Liz Trinder, Julia Feast, and David Howe
The book describes the experiences that people have had when tracing their birth parents, as well as offering practical advice on how to go about searching and what to expect emotionally. Each section has an advice box which summarizes key points, notes issues to pay…
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Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents, and Adoptive Parents
by Jean A. S. Strauss
What happens when an adoptee decides to locate a birthparent or a birthparent wants to find a child given up long ago? How does one search for people whose names one does not know? And what happens during a reunion? In 1983, Jean A. S.…
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The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee
by Susan Harris O’Connor
This book consists of five autobiographical narratives by Susan Harris O’Connor, a social worker and transracial adoptee. These monologues were developed and performed around the United States in academic, clinical and child welfare settings to wide acclaim over the last sixteen years. They will be…
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The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond
by Julie Jarrell Bailey and Lynn N. Giddens, M.A.
This book is written by two adoption specialists, one of whom is a reunited birthmother, and draws on the real-life experiences of others to help readers prepare for the emotional turbulence of the reunion experience, examine their fantasies and emotions about it, and find a…
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Journeys After Adoption: Understanding Lifelong Issues
by Jayne E. Schooler and Betsie L. Norris
What can we learn about the experience of adoption from those who have taken that journey? How can those touched by adoption navigate successfully through the issues of search, reunion, and aftermath? Will those answers have a positive impact on adoption today? Drawing upon the…
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Restored: Pursuing Wholeness When a Relationship Is Broken
by Deanna Doss Shrodes
Have your hopes been dashed into pieces when you tried to make a relationship work and the other person didn’t respond as you wished? Have you asked someone to forgive you, but he or she didn’t respond as you desired? Have you prayed for healing…