Imagine the invaluable wisdom that 50+ years of professional experience embody especially when it is coupled with the lived expertise of being an adoptee? Well, in our most recent podcast, our coaches Kim Noeth, Sharon Butler Obazee, and Sally Ankerfelt had a chance to find out in their conversation with Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao
A pioneer in many ways.
It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around the breadth, depth, and reach of Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao’s knowledge. She has been on the faculty of Harvard University for decades. She developed curricula, established programs like PACT[i] (Pre- and Post Adoption Consulting Team;) ARC (Adoption Resource Clinic,) CFC (Center for Family Connection,) and worked with thousands of adopted persons and their families. She has seen the myriad ways that adoption shapes adopted persons, birth parents, and adoptive parents.
Dr. Maguire Pavao has noticed some patterns, common struggles, and similar needs. She identified the most important thing for us :
Honesty, truth and knowledge
It feels obvious that honesty, truth, and knowledge form the foundation of healthy family relationships. Yet, so often, folks repackage, doctor, edit, sanitize and withhold the truth. It is wise and healthy for us to listen to Dr. Maguire Pavao’s message. To communicate, love, and support authentically, it is imperative for us to practice truth-telling and truth-seeking. When we deal in truths, we get to process a single set of consistent facts.
On the other hand, when we repackage, edit, or falsify the truth, we begin a process of increasing fabrications, falsehoods, and incomplete truths. Adopted children then frequently engage in an infinite number of dire or fantastical scenarios as they work to process their adoption experience.
Keeping track of what was said and to whom becomes more and more burdensome for parents. The weight of this cover up strains relationships. Trust becomes damaged and sadly, sometimes it becomes irretrievably broken resulting in family estrangement. So it makes sense to preserve trust and avoid broken relationships.
Yes, truth can be painful
But it is what is. Truth is reality. It is what a family needs to address in order to figure out how to process and handle their unique set of facts. Together. As a family. In the words of Dr. Bruce Perry and quoted by Dr. Maguire Pavao, “What’s shareable is bearable.” Families who deal with the truth—together—lean on one another. They build strength. Together.
When it becomes clear that nothing is too big, too scary, too shameful for them to handle together. Adoptees can drop the façade of everything is okay, of looking fine on the surface. An attuned family deals with the difficult stuff. Dr. Joyce said that, “The hardest emotions to live with are deep sadness, anger, and rage.” So, that’s where the family needs to pay attention and do the work together with love, hope, and commitment. Parents can encourage children to share these complex, potent emotions with them. Otherwise children are left to cope on their own relying on the own under-developed, insufficient resources as they process their adoption.
Working the problem together
When families understand the importance of working problems, of holding difficult conversations, and of adults handling their own stuff, solutions grow. Relationships grow strong. Suffering can be eased. Misunderstandings can be clarified. Communication skills strengthen. Most importantly, the trauma can be acknowledged, soothed, and processed. Out in the open. Together. As a family. Truth can be the compass.
Vital distinctions
During her conversation with our coaches, Dr. Maguire Pavao also mentioned an interesting distinction. In addition to open adoption and closed adoption—two forms of legal adoption with which we are most familiar—there is also emotional adoption. This is an informal bond comparable to the common concept of formal adoption in many significant ways. The exception is that it emotional adoption lacks the certifications, protections, regulations, oversight and guarantees of the law. Emotional adoption exists in fact and experience, not in law.
Dr. Maguire Pavao pointed out that persons who experience an emotional adoption face many of the same challenges, stresses, and issues as persons legally adopted. They need similar support and they benefit from similar interventions that are offered to adopted persons. The lack of legal documentation does not erase the impact of being adopted in fact. So, where do adoptees and birth parents find quality support?
Support sources
Whether one is involved in a formal adoption or an emotional adoption, obtaining quality support can be challenging and costly. Some agencies offer services. Regardless of who is underwriting the services, funding is always a factor—for families, for agencies, and for individuals. Nonetheless, Dr. Joyce emphasized that effective, attuned therapy is desirable. All triad members can benefit from support to help them deal with the complex realities of adoption. Stuffing and/or denying the pain and anger causes further damage and impacts relationships.
Location of services matters
And, as Kim Noeth pointed out, for birth mothers, returning to the agency for support services is itself a retraumatizing trigger. So, understandably moms are reluctant to return there for the support they so desperately need. The availability of online services may help to reduce this location-triggered trauma activation. this remains to be seen.
It also makes sense that they would want and need support provided by an unbiased, disinterested party. It is important to note another uncomfortable truth. Agency-provided support for birth mothers faces an inherent conflict of interest: the agency exists to place children for adoption.
Dr. Joyce mentioned that adoptive parents also often hesitate to return to the agency for help when they are struggling. The adoptive parents don’t want to look incompetent to the agency. They fear they might nullify the adoption or, that it would negatively impact their ability to adopt another child.
Family systems
Dr. Maguire Pavao asserted that any support provided within the adoption constellation needs to be adoptee-centric and with an awareness that it is impacting a family system. Experiences and relationships do not occur in a vacuum. They occur in an interconnected system. We refer to this fact as Tri-Relational Interconnectivity.
Final words of wisdom
“For the sake of the child, we are meant to do the best possible job” —Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao. So, what action can you take to attune to the adoptees in your family system? And to the birth parents as well.
[i] Not to be confused with Pact and adoption alliance based in California
