The Enduring Effects of Adoption on the Intimate Relationships of Adult Adoptees

Abstract

The practice of closed adoption was underpinned by the perception that newborns were too young to experience any psychological impact from relinquishment. While there is now a greater understanding of the lifelong consequence of adoption, there are diverging views on how adoption status influences an adoptee’s capacity to form intimate relationships in adulthood. This review explores the enduring effects of adoption on the intimate relationships of adult adoptees. Guided by a hermeneutic methodology this study employed the method of a hermeneutic literature review to select and interpret texts from the fields of psychology, sociology, and medical science. The review found that the understanding of adult adoptee intimacy was influenced by the societal context of closed adoption, the culturally embedded ambiguity over the terms ‘bond’ and ‘attachment’, and the contested existence of a maternal-infant bond. Two prevalent perspectives contributed to the knowledge on adult adoptee intimacy. The literature informed by attachment theory highlighted the adoptee’s childhood development within their adoptive family, and its effect on the adoptee’s experience of intimate relationship in adulthood. Quantitative empirical findings demonstrated that adult adoptees have a significantly higher risk for insecure attachment than non-adoptees. The literature informed by the primal wound concept highlighted the impact of the adoptee’s loss of their birthmother at relinquishment, and the subsequent effect on the adoptee’s capacity for intimacy in adulthood. By synthesising the findings from these two perspectives this review provides a more comprehensive understanding of adult adoptee intimacy. This review also highlights dynamics within the literature that influence understanding, such that it may make a novel contribution to the field. This integration of perspectives will be of interest to clinicians attempting to help adoptee clients make sense of the profound loss of their relinquishment and the cumulative challenges of their adoption experience.