Adoption

There is no specific disorder and probably no unique symptoms that result from the experience of being an adopted child.  The treatments of psychiatric problems in adopted children are the same as they are for non-adopted children.

There are however unique issues that adopted children and their adoptive parents can face, for example:

  • The age of adoption and the impact on development and attachment
  • What to discuss about birth parents
  • Cultural identity for international adoptees
  • Socialization issues and self-esteem in the teenage years
  • High expectations of the adoptive parents

In addition, some types of problems may be more common for adopted children such as disturbances of attachment.

Adoption is common in the United States so almost all clinicians have some experience with adopted children.  If you feel that you need a clinician who is relatively more experienced or specializes in this area, you can search the Kid Catch Directory for local experts:

    On the Find A Provider page of the Kid Catch Directory, you can use the Issues filter box to search for local experts on adoption. Clicking on this filter selection will return results of clinicians who advertise themselves as working with this issue. Kid Catch cannot guarantee that clinicians who advertise themselves this way are truly expert. 

- Updated December 5, 2019