Adoptive families. Needs for counseling

Adoption is an on-going process which affects each member of the adoptive family during each phase of the adoptee's maturation. Specific factors, such as insecurities of the adoptive parents, the child's awareness of his adoption in relation to his age and fantasies, and recently, the introduction of the possibility that the adoptee may arrange to meet his birth-parents later in life tend to add more perplexities to problems existing in these families. The normally turbulent age of adolescence increases anxieties in these vulnerable families. The pediatrician must understand the various factors uniquely inherent in adoption so that he can more effectively provide counsel to these patients.