Friday, September 28, 2007

"Family of Origin" -- Some terminology slight-of-hand

What is a "family of origin"? Well, if you didn't know any better, and read the forums at the website "Soul of Adoption" or the Evan B. Donaldson-sponsored "Ethical Adoption Conference" (anyone else think that this is an oxymoron?) webpage, you might think it referred to natural families (i.e. the natural mothers, fathers, and siblings of children separated from them by adoption).

I first encountered the term misused at "Soul of Adoption." Surprised the heck out of me. Since when was the natural family considered to be the family of origin for an adoptee, unless said adoptee had only been adopted as an adult?

A "Family of Origin" is a term with a distinct meaning and purpose. In psychotherapy (especially in what is known as "Family Systems Theory" or just "Systems Theory," i.e. counseling theory and practice expanded beyond the individual to examine that individual's part of a larger "system" of people in their lives), your "Family of Origin" is the family you grew up in. This interactive and ongoing system of people -- and hence communication, behavior, relationships, and especially roles in the family -- plays a large part in creating the person you have become as an adult. A huge part.

That is the purpose of the term "Family of Origin". To define a specific dynamic, interactive, and circumscribed network that a client belongs to and functions as part of, which not only affects them but which they also affect in return. You need the term, the concept, in order to find and identify Family of Origin issues that might be affecting an adult in their current lives. It is very often used in marriage counseling, career counseling, family therapy, and in general psychotherapy. Genograms are often added as well, to plot out relationships and areas of conflict and enmeshment.

Important Family of Origin constructs that are analyzed and explored in therapy include differentiation of self, triangulation, fusion, emotional cut-off, family projection process, object relations, life-cycle dynamics, etc. This is just a small part of it -- family therapy literature includes the work of Bowen, McGoldrick, Carter, the Milan Group, and many others.

"Bowen family systems theory is a theory of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit and uses systems thinking to describe the complex interactions in the unit. It is the nature of a family that its members are intensely connected emotionally." -- From "Bowen Theory".


Unfortunately, once again it appears that a term was chosen and externally applied onto natural families for the sole reason that it would not offend people who have adopted. Once again, our rights, our dignity -- our worth and respect -- are ignored in order to please those whose consumer demand for our infants was considered more socially acceptable than our own desire and need and love for our newborns. And this time, it is with a term that was unapologetically lifted from therapeutic practice. And the problem is that it very much looks like whatever smarty-pants decided to use the term "Family of Origin" to refer to natural families had NO idea what the term means!

Just like if a lay-person decided to take a medical term -- let's say, pancreas -- and apply it to a tibia, it would not make sense. Doctors would say, "Listen, you have that wrong! A pancreas is an internal organ, and a tibia is your shin bone!" Thus, family therapists could similarly point out that a technical term, "Family of Origin" is being directly misapplied to refer to a totally different concept. And unfortunately, it makes everyone affected by adoption who uses it, look ignorant of the technical meaning of the term.

If you were adopted as an infant or toddler, your Family of Origin is your adoptive family. What was your natural family? Certainly not your family of origin unless their played distinct and ongoing daily interactive roles in your life in a family system.

And, let's say, an adoptee went to a counselor, marriage therapist, psychologist, or what-not for help. When the professional asks them about their family of origin, they sure aren't referring to the natural family! So, once more, we're left without a term that we have been able to choose and apply to ourselves, as any other group in society is permitted to, without worrying about the frail and fragile egos of other social groups (brokers and their customers) that wielded power over us (in this case, the power to have taken our children and keep them from us).

If you are going to create a new term, don't steal an existing one from a reputable profession. A tibia is not a pancreas.

Murray Bowen would be rolling in his grave.

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On a related note, if you read here, you would think that EBD has actually decided to use a term of respect for natural parents and natural families.

But two things: (1) they instead have substituted the term "families of origin" (see above for my comment on this), and also (2) I still count half a dozen uses of the b-word on their conference website, including the preposterous term 'birth child'. Not only is this a non sequitur as a child not give birth, but this term essentially reduces adoptees to being "birth products." If you are a natural mother, this term separates you from your own child. As the word "birth mother" is a term that intentionally defines us as no longer being mothers past the natal event, the implication of the term "birth child" it is not (no longer) your child you gave birth to (as you are not their mother, they cannot be your child) -- thus in terms of the natural family, are nothing more than a birth product that was expelled along with the placenta, blood, and amniotic fluid. That is what 'birth child' implies. Just as putrid as word as "birth mother" (i.e. incubator).

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BTW, about that EBD conference, i see that several very "aware and awake" (i.e not brainwashed, not in denial) natural mothers will be attending it, including Claud. so, maybe it is not a lost cause. I don't hold out much hope that the brokers and adopters will listen to these natural mothers though. They haven't so far listened to any of us. ("But adoption is soo different, so wonderful these days! and you CHOSE to give your baby a better life!" ... puke)

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

PROTEST for Adoptees Rights

Please forward to all adoption/abduction forums and lists:

A DAY FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS!

July 20 -27, 2008
New Orleans, LA

The National Conference of State Legislatures is the largest group of its kind, the national organization of STATE LAWMAKERS, the people who DECIDE whether you may access your records… OR NOT. We propose a one day PROTEST FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS at the National Conference of State Legislature’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, on a date to be determined during the week of July 20th, 2008.

We propose a mass action of adoptees representing all fifty states, a one-day rally that will be an opportunity for adoptees demonstrate their commitment to adoptee rights and to meet their state delegation. WON’T YOU JOIN US?

WE NEED EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTS THE RIGHTS OF ADOPTEES TO ACCESS THEIR RECORDS OF BIRTH TO COME AND SHOW THESE LAWMAKERS THAT YOU CARE! Adult adoptees, first families, adoptive families, friends and supporters… EVERYONE.

To find updated information and to sign up for AR 2008 New Orleans, please go to www.adopteerights.net. Organizations interested in participating and sponsorship are encouraged to contact Ron Morgan, bb_church@adopteerights.net.

See you there!

Adoptee Rights 2008 Committee

Friday, September 14, 2007

dropping in

Hi folks. Yes, i know I haven't posted for a while. Call it deep desire to avoid getting triggered by adoption-related issues.

I am the type of person who tries not to complain. "In real life," my friends know me as maybe being "too bubbly", "too nice." Complaining is something I seldom do. Being a "bitch" goes against everything I was brought up with believing, that to be "lady-like" you just don't do. My lace-gloved mother would be rolling in her grave if she knew I was actually speaking out about something. But then, my lace-gloved mother with her right-wing Baptist views about social propriety was the first to ensure that none of the relatives or her friends ever knew I was pregnant, who hid me away in a home, and most likely was the one who arranged for my child to be removed at birth. And I don't wear lace gloves - never have and never will.

But I have to complain, because a huge injustice was perpetrated on me, and on several million other mothers in this nation. We were coerced, forced, and otherwise fed live into the adoption machine, to be used as incubators and discarded as if we did not matter. But we do. And we have NEVER "gone on with our lives. Have you tried to live with severe PTSD? A disorder that many do not even realize can be caused by disembabyment, by losing a newborn to adoption? I live with it every single day. That, and unresolved complicated grief has almost destroyed my life. It physically affected my health to the point where i could no longer work (the pain hit and my gut responded in a way such that the pain is excruciating -- i won't go into details).

What can we do? Virtually nothing. Well, maybe not nothing: there are options: therapy, meds, EMDR ... In fact, it has becoming a running joke in some support groups: "What meds are you on?" Not "Are you taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs?", but "Which ones?" Yeah, medical system, promote adoption so you have a never-ending stream of mental-health customers.

Sure there are some therapists who want to help and do their best Joe Soll and his Adoption Healing books comes to mind. The best, in my opinion. But not everyone is into "inner child work." And one approach does not help everyone. PTSD causes distinct changes to the structure and function of the brain. That is a fact. And not every natural mother is aware that books like these even exist, or that the pain she feels is not a sign of total moral and character failure. After all, we were told we would "get over it" -- we have not, and therefore we have failed, right? The social workers told us we'd get over it. Society and even our loved ones don't believe that we should feel anything:

"That was forty years in the past. Why do you care?"
"She had a good life, right? So why are you feeling this way?"
"I know lots of other breeders and they don't feel that way. They are okay with 'their decision'" (puke!)
"Move on"
" ... nothing but a Bitter Old Birthmother..." (thanks, C., for this one).

So, we hide our pain. We are not supposed to feel it. And we used denial, dissociation and repressing our emotions as survival mechanisms, in order to try to continue breathing. We create a false, fake self in order to present a "happy face" to the world and hide our pain (and our shame and guilt -- did you know that both of these are common responses in trauma victims?)

But often, for many of us, the only way to escape the pain is suicide. And frankly, I often feel that those who succeed are the lucky ones.

Not that anyone cares. Articles about our pain get published and then forgotten. No baby broker will tell an expectant mother that she stands a good chance of suffering lifelong unresolved grief, PTSD, severe depression, secondary infertility, or other such consequences.

I was sent two articles by a friend. Here are some excerpts from them.

“Relinquishing mothers have more grief symptoms than women who have lost a child to death, including more denial; despair, atypical responses; and disturbances in sleep, appetite, and vigor.” - Askren & Bloom (1999)

"Because society views the relinquishment of an infant as a voluntary choice, there is no acknowledgement that a loss has occurred, and thus no expectation for the birth mother to go through a grief process with subsequent adjustment " - Askren & Bloom (1999)

"
“Results shown in Table 3 demonstrate that mothers relinquishing a child for adoption tend towards more grief symptoms than bereaved parents, especially if the method of adoption was open adoption.” ... "Table 3, comparing natural mothers in both open and closed adoptions with bereaved parents, shows that natural mothers suffer more denial, atypical responses, dispair, anger, depersonalization, sleep disturbance, somaticizing, physical symptoms, dependency, vigor." -- Blanton & Deschner (1990).