Tara Kim wrote a beautiful post over at the Adoption Mosaic blog about the primal connection she did not have with anyone until she had her daughter:
I was adopted at the age of two and a half. I was not adopted along with a sibling. I have not reunited with anyone in my birth family. Most of my life I’ve felt as though I was suspended in time and space. Not knowing a single blood relative is an unnatural state of being and can make you crazy.
I shared it on Google Reader and Aimee, who is a birth mom reunited with her son, commented on it:
It still floors me, how, when I met my son, my senses knew him, the feel of his skin, and how he smelled, were instantly familiar and very very clearly MINE.
I was thinking about these posts in light of the fact that there is no research that proves a primal connection or a primal wound. If you can’t prove it, can it be true? Is it biologically true or is it a cultural truth? Certainly in our culture we place great emphasis on biological ties and so could it be that adults have a hindsight that makes them see that primal connection when they look back? Or could it be that our children are truly bonded to their biological parents from the minute they’re conceived?
I’ve come to a practical conclusion about this as I consider my own daughter’s adoption, which is it doesn’t matter whether or not we can prove it. Likely we won’t be able to prove anything for a long, long time. I don’t know whether or not my daughter and her mother’s connection is the result of nature (primal biology) or nurture (cultural mores about biology) but it doesn’t matter to me which it is. I know that they do indeed share a connection that is central to them as individuals and as a dyad.
It can be difficult not to buy into either side of the debate and make decisions as a parent standing rooted in one particular bias or another. The older my childreb get, the more I am learning to find ways to let them be the authors of their own experiences and this feels particularly salient in parenting my daughter in this open adoption.
It’s a balance — giving our kids room to feel the way they feel without visiting our ideas about how they ought to feel. Likewise, for those of us in open adoptions, giving our kids’ other parents room to feel the way they want to feel and not making assumptions based on our own values. That means sometimes making room for those primal feelings without pushing our children into a specific kind of experience. So how do we do that?
- We teach our children to be emotionally literate. We talk about feelings often — good and bad — and give our kids the language they need to share theirs with us. As human beings we use words to make sense of our world; the more words your child has, the more control she will have over her experience.
- We encourage them to share their stories without asserting editorial control. For example, let’s say a child comes home from a playdate angry at her friend for not sharing. She needs someone to listen to her tell the story without interrupting with, “Remember that you didn’t share your toys last time she came over, now do you understand how that feels?” She needs that person to hear the full story and honor her experience while helping her expand her vocabulary (“No wonder you feel frustrated!” “I can understand feeling disappointed”). Once we’ve processed the story with our children, then comes the time for teaching about relationships and problem-solving. In other words, after we’ve helped our children in their emotional literacy we can talk about how sharing toys makes for better playdates all the way around.
- We encourage them to correct us. While our kids are learning how to communicate, we can build their confidence by acnowledging their expertise in telling their own stories. We can do this by being explicit, “You seem annoyed by his little sister, do I have that right?” or “If someone made such a fuss over my painting, I’d be pretty proud! How do you feel?” That gives a child room to say, “Actually I’m annoyed with his MOM because she’s the one who made us watch her!” or “I feel totally embarrassed by all that fuss!”
- We give them autonomy in their authorship. Some adoptive parents may feel afraid when they read Tara’s story or Aimee’s quote. We may feel worried that our children’s feelings about their adoption reflect on us or on our parenting or we may feel insecure about losing our children’s affections. But that’s our own struggle and we should not make it the struggle of our children. Because of our power in the relationship it can be very easy to tilt our children into a place where they can’t be honest with us or — worse yet — with themselves. If we are struggling with our own expectations around adoption or have trouble talking and listening to our kids, we can seek out help from other adoptive parents, other members of the adoption community or from a knowledgeable counselor.
I can relate to Aimee’s statement. The one fleeting moment I had in a room with my daughter (see “The Nose”) I knew without touching her what her hair would feel like. I recognized the slouch of her back and the way she sat in a chair. It was all me and my family. It startled me how FAMILIAR she was to me even though she had been raised apart from me for over 20 years. I can only imagine if I ever get to have real dialogue, relations with her, how that might also feel.
[...] to this post, there are other parents who favor this open adoption option as [...]
Like Suz, the similarities floor me here and there. Now, unlike Suz and the quoted comment(s), I’ve had continued contact. It’s not like daily contact. Or monthly. She doesn’t see me or my sons every month to pick up things. But they’re there. And, yes, it floors me every single time.
I’m certain I’d never thought about it before my reunion with my son, except over the years there was this torture of knowing I wouldn’t recognize him on the street if I saw him. That I could stand next to him in line at the bank and not know he was my son made me crazy. But when I saw him, 20+ years after his birth, he was as familiar to me as my parented daughter. I wonder if he felt anything like that. I know that when he saw a photo of his father, he tried to hide his shock at how alike they look. On the phone, I can’t tell them apart. Of course, more interesting are the mannerisms in him that I recognize, but that first moment of recognition when I saw him, that stays the most profound.
Genetics is a great deal of who we are, no surprises there. I see the familiarity in my son more a result of shared genes than any “primal connection” exclusively with me as mother. No, I do not think humans are primally bonded to anyone the minute they are conceived, nor do I believe that the primary caregiver cannot be replaced in early infancy without incurring a primal wound.
I see his natural father, my grandfather, my other sons in my surrendered son. The genetic connection is real, but not just about me nor about pregnancy and birth. I do not see us “a dyad” but as part of the mosaic of heredity stretching back into infinity. It isn’t “mommy magic.” And of course growing up in an entirely different family, environment had some part as well, but in personality, interests and character I think my son is pretty much as he would have been had I raised him.
You underline my point exactly, which is that different people have a different experience of the same situation. This is why I’m glad I’m not a policy maker since a policy maker would have to make decisions based on some idea of what is the most general interpretation of an experience. I’m much better suited to be a counselor where I can see you in the context of YOUR beliefs and act accordingly!!!
“I was thinking about these posts in light of the fact that there is no research that proves a primal connection or a primal wound.”
What about the mother and fetus/baby being connected in-utero?
Doesn’t that count for something in all of this?
Mei Ling, the prebirth psychology research is scanty and doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny but I’m of the belief that just because we can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not THERE. Which is to say, I know we can prove that moms/babies are connected via an umbilical cord but we can’t prove what that means psychologically. However I don’t need that proof. I’m not a research psychologist and I’m willing to believe the person in front of me who is sharing her particular experience and if she feels a primal wound than I’m not going to say, “But you can’t because we haven’t proven there is one.” Likewise if someone else did NOT experience that primal connection psychologically (Maryanne) then I’m not going to tell her that experience is wrong or unhealthy. That was my point with this entry.
“… the prebirth psychology research is scanty”
How so? You mean books on the science of in-utero biological connections and early pregnancy?
I mean research that shows X = Y; i.e., that the psychological pre-birth environment leads to a specific post-birth experience. There isn’t definitive research on that but again, I’m saying for my purposes that the absence of this research does NOT mean I dismiss primal wound theory (Maryanne and I disagree on this). It’s just that I’m loathe to say that primal wound theory ALWAYS exists in adoption and that anyone who does not experience it is just not in touch with that experience.
I do think that there are some salient truths for most (not all) adoptees although I don’t know if those truths are cultural (created by our norms & values) or biological (provable by science) but what I’m saying is I don’t care which it is. I’m saying I’m not really interested in getting into the debate of nature or nurture because I don’t think knowing which it is makes a difference in how I will practice as a counselor.
Besides which, my sociology background makes me prone to thinking the whole nature/nurture debate that upholds one (nature –> scientifically provable & objective) over the other (nurture –> prone to subjectivity) irrelevent. If someone has that experience and reports having that experience, I’m going to trust that experience period.
So even though we may disagree about whether or not primal wound has been proven scientifically, I think we agree that there is an adoptee experience that demonstrates primal wounding.
I do not think it is possible to “experience” a primal wound or connection, but it is very possible to believe you have experienced it after the fact, and that can color every aspect of your life. I can see how as therapist that belief would have to be taken into account in dealing with the client who put their faith in it.
Belief in PW is like sincerely believing you were abducted by aliens, saw a ghost , met Bigfoot in the woods, or subscribe to some of the more extreme religious beliefs. To those people who hold such beliefs, they are absolutely real, in their minds. It does not matter what rational thought says, because they KNOW. That does not make such beliefs objectively true or provable, and individual memory is notoriously faulty in recording objective truth.
My problem with Primal Wound is not as a metaphor or a belief that needs no proof. If it helps some people make sense of their lives, that is good, but from what I have seen it can also do harm and impede healing in others.
What bothers me is the claim that science backs it up, and the pseudoscience taken as fact by many around this theory without ever questioning or even listening to a skeptical view.
Maryanne, I think it’s disrespectful to lump primal wound in with “believing you were abducted by aliens, saw a ghost , met Bigfoot in the woods, or subscribe to some of the more extreme religious beliefs. To those people who hold such beliefs, they are absolutely real, in their minds.” I appreciate the passion you feel about unpacking the primal wound “mythology” and I agree that it can do harm or impede healing but I’d argue that part of this may lie in the defensiveness that some people feel in having to argue about their experience. If people kept telling me that my lived experience was akin to believing in big foot, I might cling to it so hard that I’d have trouble reconciling that experience, too.
“Belief in PW is like sincerely believing you were abducted by aliens, saw a ghost , met Bigfoot in the woods, or subscribe to some of the more extreme religious beliefs.”
Is that not just as damaging as believing that adopted children were meant to be adopted?
“If it helps some people make sense of their lives, that is good, but from what I have seen it can also do harm and impede healing in others.”
Is it because belief in the PW requires a blanket statement type of thinking?
Throwing this out there – what if you have a good life,
a good job and an awesome family, and you believe in the PW?
Does that make any difference in the argument that it “impedes” healing? In other words, is it possible to believe one has a PW and *still* function efficiently in life?
Or is the issue that having a PW at all indicates you’re “ruined” for life and emotionally damaged beyond counseling or therapeutic repair?
I’m answering for myself and not Maryanne (obviously) but I think this is important: “Or is the issue that having a PW at all indicates you’re “ruined” for life and emotionally damaged beyond counseling or therapeutic repair?” I don’t think that’s an issue that exists only for PW since I’ve heard similar discussions around rape, childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, etc. I think this piece is a vital part of the discussion and that arguing about the existence of PW holds that discussion back. That’s why I’m saying whether it’s provable or not ultimately is not an issue when we’re talking about counseling (it is an issue when we’re talking about adoption policy). It also an issue if a counselor is forcing his/her bias (for or against primal wound or any other theory) instead of acknowledging their bias but letting the client lead the way. I know from being an adoptive parent that I need to see my daughter as the whole & healthy person that she is but NOT dismiss the impact her adoption has had on her growth and development. It’s easy to get stuck in one or the other camp but there are too many limits to that so I prefer to live in that tricky balance.
“That does not make such beliefs objectively true or provable, and individual memory is notoriously faulty in recording objective truth.”
You do realize that everyone is going to have an invested bias in the PW theory/claim?
“If you’re willing to abandon any requirement for evidence, you can also ignore any evidence that counters your opinion.” – PZ Myers
Just throwing that out there. Yes, Mei Ling, everyone has a bias, including me. The comparisons I made were not meant to be insulting: the people who believe those things really feel that they are lived experiences, as do deeply religious people who see visions, hear from God, etc. Things can be real in the psychological and emotional sense(recovered memories, anyone?) but not objectively real or provable, which does not stop them from having profound effects on the believers’ lives
Mei Ling wrote:
Is it because belief in the PW requires a blanket statement type of thinking?
Yes. It is also because it posits that the wound aways happens shortly after birth when the mother leaves and the impact of this event on the infant consciousness, rather than allowing for other explanations of when and how the pain of being adopted begins. Nobody, least of all me, is denying that being surrendered and adopted causes many adoptees real pain and real problems.
Mei Ling wrote
Or is the issue that having a PW at all indicates you’re “ruined” for life and emotionally damaged beyond counseling or therapeutic repair?
Yes, that is the issue, and that is where PW belief causes harm. Of course it is possible to believe in PW and be normal, happy, have a good life, which is probably the case of most believers. Where PW belief causes harm is when it is used as an excuse not to seek help by those with serious mental and psychological problems that may have some other cause, and seen as hopeless and incurable. It causes harm when it is used as an excuse for bad behavior towards others and not taking responsibility for one’s actions.
I am not a counselor so I have no problem making my opinion on Primal Wound known. I agree that counselors should be open about their biases so the client can decide whether that particular therapist works for them.
I am also not free of irrational beliefs….hey, I do go to Church, don’t know if ghosts are real or not, and hope their is an afterlife. But none of that comes under the heading of science, nor can everything in life be quantified in a scientific way.
Saying it again…PW as metaphor and belief is fine. Saying it is science is not.
Dawn, I want to back you up here. Anthropology provides many examples of cultures where adoption is so normalized that everyone knows someone who is/has been adopted. Typically, these cultures are matrilineal, meaning that they only count as kin their maternal relatives. In these cultures, the adoptions tend to be fully open and not necessarily permanent. Parents are typically not stigmatized for giving up their children or valorized for taking in children; children typically know who their birth parents are and sometimes move freely between households. There doesn’t seem to be any negative effect on adoptive children or surrending parents in these cultures. Please note all my wiggle-words, however! Each culture is specific in its understanding and cultural rules vary dramatically.
Our culture understands adoption in a radically different way. I don’t know much about primal wound theory, but I DO believe that people in our culture who are adopted may feel/be wounded from birth. The biology of it all isn’t necessarily critical for the feelings to be real. If someone FEELS a primal wound then they need healing for that wound! It could be that easy-adoption cultures simply have better methods for healing that wound or that the primal wound is cultural but you’re right–it doesn’t matter. What matters is helping each individual find a way to manage their own feelings.
Thanks Sydney — you said this better than I have!!!
I agree with both you and Sydney that the goal of therapy is not to debate whether primal wound is real or not, but to help people deal with their present lives and feelings. If you had a patient who was middle-aged, multiple divorces and failed relationships, inability to keep a job some drug and alcohol abuse, and blamed it all on his birthmother and the primal wound, and felt that his mother owed him financial support and endless attention because of this, I can see where your goal would not be so much to debate his beliefs but to try to get him to see how he could change some of his behavior.
This is not hypothetical but typical of those adoptees who use PW as an excuse for everything wrong in their lives. The problem is not that they have the belief, but that they use it this way. If therapy could help someone like this live a more productive and less destructive life, that would be a blessing to many, no matter what the person believed caused the problem. It is getting beyond it that matters.
What of the mothers who endlessly retraumatise themselves and others with their insistence that the children they gave birth to who became adoptees were ‘torn from their wombs’ and ‘ripped from their breasts’? That is not as the above, a hypothetical example but the reality of those who seem to believe the primal wound has had it’s impact on them too.
Von, those mothers need help as well. Speaking for myself, my child was not “torn from my womb” nor “ripped from my breast”. He was surrendered by me, because of unfortunate circumstances in my life at the time, very poor counseling that pointed to adoption as the “right” choice, shame of my family and a lack of courage on my part that I will always regret. I take responsibility for my part in that.
I cannot be “re-traumatized” at this point because my son is a healthy adult, despite everything that happened to him, and I prefer to focus on the amazing fact that I now know him, can communicate with him, and am very proud of the man he has become. The past is gone. He is not my “lost baby” but his own person leading his own life.
How other mothers feel and deal with their loss is up to them, again, I am just speaking for me.
I wonder if those who have trauma and grief in their life of any kind (not just adoption) stay in it because there is no true acknowledgement and owning of it from the family/community they find themselves in. What I mean is that wounding, and I’m not talking primal wound, but the wounding that children and adults endure in various ways every day, does not happen in a vacuum. It happens as part of relationship and community. And yet we expect the individual to “get over it” on their own. What if wounding is not just one person’s responsibility to “get over”? What if there is a truth, a lesson there for the family/community as a whole? A truth and lesson all can grow from and come out stronger not only as individuals, but family/community, as well.
I totally agree that if we deny people their right to grieve we help cement them in that grief.
I’ve found the discussion here to be polite, respectful, and engaging, particularly as it relates to the primal wound theory. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about this theory and talking to many people whose opinions I value. While I personally don’t believe it to be true, I now realize that those who do believe that it exists are convinced that it does. So as Maryanne , Sydney and others have wisely pointed out, it’s recognizing that if someone feels a wound, then the goal would be to assist that person in learning how to effectively deal with the effects of the wound regardless of the root cause. Being cemented in grief can lead to the grave.
Gail
Being allowed to grieve and people around you knowing why you are grieving is very helpful. I never really kept it a secret that I gave up a child; my best friends, lifelong friends I still have, knew and were sympathetic, and my parents came around to supporting me searching and my work in adoption reform. Giving up my son broke my heart, but it was never a terrible secret, and I got involved in support groups and adoption reform when my son was still very young, a pre-teen. Also, I found him very young so only spent 8 years not knowing if he were dead or alive, and sort of got to see him grow up from a distance.
Looking back, I think all those things gave me a very different experience than those who were in the closet for 30 or 40 years, told few or none, never got any sympathy from family members, and in some cases were found by their kids out of the blue when they were not in any way prepared. I think those circumstances could very well lead to unresolved grief and unexpected painful reactions after reunion, as well as delayed grief for the lost baby and problems dealing with the adoptee as an adult.
What matters to me about the term is that because it leads some people into thinking that it has been proven, they unquestioningly accept it as a given – perhaps because they do not really understand that they are dealing with a metaphor. Metaphorical naivieté is dangerous because a metaphor taken literally can cloud issues as much as shed light on them. Metaphor is generally anti-empirical, and in the ‘soft sciences’, such as psychology and psychiatry, runs the risk of turning into dogma.
This is not the same as denying people authorship of their own experience. It is my belief that people deserve better than to have an interpretation of their experience put upon them by some external agency as if it is gospel.