New Perspectives on the Dynamics of the Adoption Triangle Using Biographical, Literary and Psychoanalytic Sources.”
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“NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE DYNAMICS OF THE ADOPTION TRIANGLE USING BIOGRAPHICAL, LITERARY AND PSYCHOANALYTIC SOURCES.” Robert William Kyle Fleming A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of East London for the degree of Doctor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. March 2013 1 Abstract The difficulty of qualitative research in the area of adoption process is the starting point for this work. Forms of data gathering and analysis that will capture the emotionality of adoption participants are outlined. The aim was to extend our psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamics of the ‘searching’ phenomenon in the adoption triangle. A review of the psychoanalytic literature pertinent to adoption was compiled and the applicability of the core concepts explored. There was a clear fit between these tools and the task of understanding the multi-layered nature of adoption. A systematic thematic analysis of narrative accounts of the lived experience of four subjects at each of the three points of the triangle (12 in total), revealed a number of new themes. Many of them were not found in the existing literature in the same way. It was apparent that the majority of the themes were evident in all three positions of the adoption triangle. The most significant among these was evidence of a particular kind of ‘triangular psychology’. The adoption triangle members were consistently preoccupied at many levels with those occupying both the other two positions. This stands in some contrast to a tendency in the literature to assume that subjects are dyadically preoccupied with those occupying just one of the other positions. This research suggested that all were triadically relating within the triangle. The empirical work in this research suggests the manner in which these preoccupations persist through time in complex and fluid interactions with each another. The idea of ‘triangular psychology’ illuminates the phenomenon of the ‘search’ as a core existential predicament in the lives and minds of adoption participants. In addition, a systemic thematic review of two novels in which adoption is a major theme was undertaken. The analysis of the novels (one from the 19th century and one from the 21st century) had a remarkable concordance with the themes from the research 2 interviews. The vast majority of the interview themes were also present in the work by the two novelists. The implications for therapeutic work are considered. A more three dimensional way of thinking about object relationships is required when psychotherapy is offered to adoption related individuals. 3 Table of contents 1. Abstract 2. Chapter one. Introduction, context and research question. Page 8-24 3. Chapter two. Methodology Page 25-38 4. Chapter three. Psychoanalytic thinking about adoption. Page 39-56 5. Chapter four. Searching Page 57-69 6. Chapter five. Adoption, psychoanalysis and literature. Page 70-79 7. Chapter six. Adoption Themes in Bleak House. Page 80-103 8. Chapter seven. Adoption Themes in Divisadero Page 104-123 9. Chapter eight. Thematic analysis Page 124-182 10. Chapter nine. Hypothesis generation. Page 183-195 11. Chapter ten. Cross reference interview analysis and the two novels Page 196-212 4 12. Chapter eleven. Discussion and conclusion Page 213-229. 13. Bibliography Page 230-271 14. Appendices 1-24 Pages 272-323 5 Acknowledgements Many thanks for the generous thinking of Professor Andrew Cooper and Dr Janet Philps. Huge thanks also to my wife Jacqueline and my daughters Lorna and Ailsa who have been unbelievably supportive of this work. 6 Dedication. My father died in 2012 before this work was completed and it is dedicated to him. 7 Chapter One. Introduction, context and research question. “Adoption is an emotive subject entangled in webs of confusion and fantasy. ‘Mother’, ‘infant’ and ‘family’ are not neutral systems of thought but terms loaded with emotions, beliefs and fantasies. An adoptive family has to be forged through the various discourses of family life and the social injunctions of what a family should be. Whether adopted or not, individual fantasies of family life are formed within these social and cultural demands. Elinor Rosenberg (1992) has pointed out that until recently (1970a) adoption was seen, unproblematically, as providing solutions for all those involved. This rather simplistic view of adoption led to a denial of its difficulties and complexities. The call for ‘love’ as if it will simply repair and make good the losses and absences of the human condition in general, and the adoption situation in particular, is no longer feasible or realistic”. (Treacher and Katz, 2000:11) Introduction. Adoption and loss are intrinsically linked. The impact on the adopted child of losing a birth mother, on the birth mother of giving away a child and on the adoptive parent of giving up a view of themselves as capable of creating new life are three painful factors which appear in the narratives of adoption. George Eliot’s last novel ‘Daniel Deronda’ (1876) is, inter alia, a rich description of adoption. Deronda’s own understanding of his past initially contains much fantasy and frank guesswork. A wealthy English gentleman adopts Deronda and gives him a materially excellent start to life with many privileges. In one painful scene with his teacher, the 13 year old Deronda suddenly makes a link between himself as an adoptee and the illegitimate children he was reading about in history class. “… the idea that others probably knew things concerning him which they did not choose to mention, and which he would not have had them mention”. (Eliot, 1876:142) 8 The assumption is made that he is the illegitimate offspring of the wealthy gentleman. However, when his estranged birth mother struggles with her own ambivalence about giving birth and arranges to meet Daniel, his world changes. He finds himself searching for his roots in a culture that at the time was diametrically opposite to his adopted life. The impact of the search for the truth of his origins and the reality of his losses perceived in a very different manner, bring Deronda to a crossroads of development in his life and his mind (Williams and Waddell 1991). Novy (2007) has written about the manner in which Eliot’s character portrays identity searching in adoption. “…Daniel Deronda relates adoptees’ discovery of their heredity to a drastic redefinition of their personal and national identity and their vocation. In the simple terms of slogan, the novel makes a powerful case for the view that adoptees must learn their heredity to know who they really are.” (Novy 2007:156) However, not all non-fictional adoptees have such clarity of transformation. Loss and its impact can often be hidden underground or become overwhelming. The various participants in the adoption process are often far from the ideal point of using such a ‘working through’ for complete change. The purpose of this chapter is to contextualise the field of adoption and chart the evolution of the research question. In a descriptive and polemic book of collected stories of adoption, Ann Morris (1999) brings the various versions of loss to the fore. One of the adoptee’s stories is particularly moving; “I don’t know anything, really, about my natural parents, and that upsets me a lot. It’s hard to know the difference between what I remember and what I’ve been told. Sometimes I make up stories about my early childhood, about those first 13 months, because I just desperately want to have a part of my life that’s entirely mine, my very own. Being adopted, I often feel that everything I’ve got, including my name, has been given to me by my adoptive parents. I need to feel that I came to my parents with something that was already mine” (Morris 1999:192) 9 Similarly, Dusky (1996) writes of her moving experiences as a birth mother; “I was a mother without a child. I was a mother who searched for her daughter’s face in those children at shopping malls, in Central Park, anywhere children her age might be. The world was a giant stage upon which, at any moment, our paths might cross, our lives intersect. But would I recognize her? That was the question. Improbable, of course. Almost certainly crazy. I’ve talked to enough women like myself to know that this is what we all do” (Dusky, 1996:3) The adoptive parents face their own challenges as outlined by this statement from Mitchard (1996) writing about her thoughts about the birth parent; “Mother’s day is not the only time I think of her, but it’s the only time I can’t avoid it. She was going to have a child but couldn’t keep it. I wanted a child desperately but couldn’t have one. She was the mother at birth; I was the mother right after. It sounded simple, but it wasn’t”. (Mitchard, 1996:71) The adoption literature often refers to the adoption ‘triangle’ of adopted child, adoptive parents and birth parents. In its simplest form the adoption triangle (Treacher and Katz 2001, Triseliotis et al 1997) contains at least an adoptee, a birth parent and an adoptive parent who all have unique challenges to their own development and loss to work with. In the current practice of adoption, which includes many kinds of placement other than infant adoption, it is true to say that the basic triangle might be even more complicated. There will be relationships with foster carers or extended family members who may have cared for the child and developed attachments after the removal from the birth parents but before the adoption. The Office for National Statistics 2012 presented statistical details of adoption in the period 2010-11.