The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child

"Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)"
~ Written on 2008-06-11

"I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.
"
~ Written on 2008-04-13

"As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent. "
~ Written on 2008-03-18

"I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation."
~ Written on 2007-11-09

"This book proposes a theory that certainly resonated for me. Because our adopted son came to us at 6 days old and was a happy healthy baby we assumed all would be well. But, as this book explains, the hurt had already happened. It has been painful to see his anger, to try to help but continue to fail. We knew he was unhappy but, even with help, he was unable to articulate it. Instead his behaviour has been difficult, he 'self-medicated', and he gave up. It seemed a very good thing for him to meet his natural parents. He finally saw some of himself in somebody else, but it also seems to be more than he can deal with.

For adoptees who read (my son is very dyslexic) this has got to be a life-changing book. For natural mothers, I think it must be painful, but would ultimately help them understand why the child they gave up didn't get the perfect life they wanted for them. For adoptive parents, it should be mandatory reading. It would not be what we wanted to hear at the time of adoption, but it would have put us on a more realistic footing. The book says nothing about the relationship with the natural father, the first abondonment.

More research should be done with this theory and it should be brought to policy makers and legislators. Surely we can do a lot better for these children."
~ Written on 2007-10-22