Repertory Grid Technique in adoptive parent candidate counselling REPERTORY GRID TECHNIQUE IN ADOPTIVE PARENT CANDIDATES COUNSELLING Leonora S. Pechnikova*, Andrey L. Ryzhov* & Ekaterina B. Zhuykova** * Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia ** Psychological Institute, Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, Russia Parental expectations play an important role in the success of adoption or foster placement. We propose a qualitative approach to explore parental expectations based on repertory grid technique with children’s photos as elements. Its main advantage rests on the ability to assess such interrelated aspects of parental expectations as the elaboration of personally important content, the ability to regulate reactions, the presence of stereotypes about adoption, lack of awareness or evasive thinking and specific attitudes towards family members. The article presents rationale, administration and interpretation procedures, the results of an exploratory study of parents from 48 families in order to define preliminary norms for quantitative indexes and a sample of grid analysis to illustrate how the method can be employed in counselling. Keywords: adoption, repertory grids, family counselling, parental expectations INTRODUCTION relevance in the Russian Federation, where the large number of orphans is acknowledged as a Adoptive parents form an idea of their future problem, and active efforts have been made to child long before adoption. They also develop reduce it. This resulted in a decrease in the meanings of desired and undesired behaviours number of orphans in institutional care from and interactions, supposed signs of a successful 120,000 to 52,000 in the period from 2012 to adoption process and anticipate themselves in 20171. To achieve this goal, an extensive the parental role. All this can be called promotional campaign was launched. Billboards, expectations of child adoption. When positive TV advertisements, radio, social networks expectations are violated, or when negative ones presenting powerful messages and images of are realised, this can lead to severe children desperately looking for a home and of disillusionment of the parents and contribute to parents, changing the life of both children and adoption failure. Not only do the discrepancies adults and creating a new family. Conversely, between expectations and experience matter, the the obligatory pre-adoption training programmes nature of the expectations themselves may aim to challenge the myths of adoption, and contribute to the heightened risk of mismatch. support the expectations of difficulties, Some discrepancies are normal and inevitable, disruptive behaviours, slow and gradual and the ability of parents to acknowledge reality, formation of affective bonds, emphasizing adjust to it and make the necessary minor or differences between the parenting of biological major corrections to initial expectations is and adopted children. crucial. Since expectations are changeable and The formation of expectations is influenced complex, a clear-cut distinction between those by various factors: motivation to adopt, past experiences of parenting, beliefs, values, family dynamics, traumatic experiences, individual 1 As stated by the Russian government report on its personality traits, etc. Importantly, they are also performance in 2012–2017 shaped by social constructions of adopted (http://government.ru/en/news/32246/, last accessed children, which usually contradict each other 25.11.2018). (Miall, 1996). This problem is of particular 53 Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 16, 2019 Leonora S. Pechnikova, Andrey L. Ryzhov and Ekaterina B. Zhuykova that are adequate (functional, adaptive) and those the affected child in a positive light, whilst that are not, is difficult to make. A statement of viewing the hypothetic normal child as the what parents want from adopting a child is not difficult one (McConachie, 1986, p. 77-78). enough, and a qualitative approach is required Sharma et al. (2013) showed the relationship of that takes into consideration the complexity of conflicts and dissimilarities (to other children or motivational content of expectations, their family members) in construing their autistic flexibility, adjustability to new experiences and child to a mother’s parental distress. degree of realism. Moreover, adherence to a help-oriented approach that integrates assessment with counselling is very important. METHOD Personal construct psychology and repertory grid technique offer a proper methodological The idea of the method proposed in this article paradigm. The expectations about the child and derives from a practice widespread in Russia, adoption can be regarded as parents’ personal when parents who consider adopting a child start theories, developed to anticipate important future browsing photos, stories and other materials of outcomes, that reflect how parents construct their children suitable for adoptive care. Many charity lives and representations of self, e.g. their ‘core foundations officially offer intermediate services constructs’. that allow parents to get acquainted with a child before starting the formal adoption process. An extreme example is the “Same Face” project of Studies of adoptive parenting using personal the “Change One Life” foundation, that constructs approach encourages adults to upload their own photo in order to get a list of orphans with similar facial There are few records of attempts to use personal appearance2 [2]. We believe that some kind of construct methodology with adoptive parents. exploration of photos or other materials is a Pokela in her PhD thesis was able to predict rather universal phenomenon, even if not successful fostering from structural variables of institutionalized, that reflects the crystallization grids, but not from the content (after of expectations and the decision to adopt. Thus, McConachie, 1986, p. 80). Nissim (1996) studying parental expectations through studied differences in perceptions of problematic examination of photos could legitimately be situations by foster carers and social workers. called an experiment in Kurt Lewin’s terms. It Cooper (2011) used Tschudi’s ABC technique adheres to the principle of ‘functional probe’, and Perceiver Element Grids, developed by formulated by the founder of the Russian (ex- Procter (2014), to compare personal construct Soviet) ‘experimental abnormal psychology’ systems of foster carers and their children. approach, Bluma Zeigarnik (1972, p.24): Several studies explored adopted or foster experiment should model real-life situations, children’s perceptions of self and others (e.g. revealing genuine personal values, modes of task Butler & Green, 2007; Hicks & Nixon, 1989). solving habitually used by a subject. Some studies of non-adoptive parenting touch on the issue of parental expectations. Kotler and Chetwynd (1980) demonstrated that family Procedure therapy leads to more nuanced and realistic perceptions of both ‘identified patients’ and their Selection of elements non-disturbed siblings. Safuanov and Kulakov (2017) used grids with emotional states as Parents (couples or singles) are given a series of constructs to study a couple’s perceptions of eighty 10x15 cm photos of children, aged conflict situations in forensic settings. A review approximately 5-12 years. They are asked to of repertory grid studies concerning parental attitudes towards children with disabilities can 2 The site of the project is available at be found in McConachie (1986). Vicary found http://odnolico.changeonelife.ru/ru/uploadPhoto, that mothers who perceive their child as very accessed 19.11.2018. different from normal children tend to perceive 54 Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 16, 2019 Repertory Grid Technique in adoptive parent candidate counselling choose 20 portraits that elicit emotional reactions finished, are ranked again using the provided (whether positive or negative). construct easy for us to adopt vs. difficult for us Photos were taken from open sources, to adopt. The estimated total time is between 60 including Internet sites on adoption. The choice and 90 minutes. was based on the results of 27 preliminary interviews and reflected the eight aspects of children’s photos most frequently mentioned by Interpretation adoptive parents as important ones: (a) age, (b) gender, (c) colour of hair and eyes, (d) Slavic or In interpreting the grid both quantitative and non-Slavic appearance, (e) signs of qualitative approaches to data analysis are used. developmental abnormalities, (f) place where the Priority is given to qualitative analysis, as photo was taken, (g) valence of emotions, (h) implied by Kelly’s original idiographic apparent proneness of the child to approach, where a conceptualization of each case communication. precedes any group or inter-individual comparisons (Kelly, 1955, p.30). Quantitative indices are used as starting points for analysis of Construct elicitation a grid, signalling a marked particularity of construing, that has to be further interpreted. It Constructs are elicited from randomly assigned requires the examination of the grid as a whole, triads (avoiding the use of two particular photos the necessity of accounting for both content and in the same triad more than once). Parents are structural relationships of constructs and asked what is similar in the two pictures, what elements, readiness to turn to the raw data makes them different from the third one, and (complete wordings of constructs and even to the then about the