From Chaos to Developmental Growth

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Notes

For detailed discussion of narcissistic vulnerabilities in adopted children and other problems associated with adoption, or effects of “late” adoptee status see also: Brinich (1980); Cohen (1996); Frankel (1991); Schechter (1960); Sherick (1983); Wieder (1977a, 1977b).

For children whose constitutional vulnerabilities interact with developmental factors, such as early parental loss, Fonagy and Target (1998) note an increased impairment in impulse control and self-regulation as their attachment to the analyst becomes more intense. They cite research linking this temporary impairment of mentalization “to the activation of traumatic responses triggered by closeness to or separation from attachment figures” (p. 106).

Greenacre (1967) notes the likelihood of body image distortions and the presence of perversions in patients who have suffered severe pregenital trauma. Cohen (1996) also found the trauma of abandonment and adoption impacted the development of gender and sexuality in her latency-age, adopted, psychoanalytic patient.

Like 38-month-old Sophie, reported by Mayes and Cohen (1993) p. 160, Nikita’s verbal attacks were often “provoked” by eye contact with me as she entered and left the consulting room. She projected onto me the aggressive intent of looking, as though the very act of visual contact would hold us too dangerously close.

For further discussion of the necessary mourning of the biological parents to secure attachment to the adoptive parents, see: (Brinich 1980; Cohen 1996; Frankel 1991; Sherick 1983).

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Notes on contributors

Barbara J. Novak

Supervising and Training Analyst and Associate Supervisor in Child and Adolescent Analysis, Baltimore-Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis; Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine.