摘要：The study aims to explore adult adoptees’ integration of their adoptions over the lifespan. It utilises retrospective reports of adoptees’ childhood experiences of secrecy pertaining to adoption and its impact on integrating being adopted. It explores the initial motivations for searching for birth parents according to Anderson’s (1989) model. It also investigates the relationship roles adopted in reunion, and whether deeper motivations for searching emerged when adoptees described what their reunion relationship meant to them. Twelve participants were recruited; nine from an advertisement in the newsletter of Vanish (an adoption search and support organisation), and three were referred by a participant; all grew up in the closed adoption system. The participants were interviewed about their adoption narratives and the study utilises a qualitative, phenomenological methodology. The study reveals that, typically, although told of their adoption as children, the adoptee participants were bound by secrecy and this affected their ability to integrate the full meaning of their adoptions. More aware and meaningful connection to their adoption experience emerged in adulthood when they underwent the process of search and reunion. The need for medical information, and identity consolidation, were the most commonly reported motivations for seeking reunion, and were a valuable aspect of reunion. However, ultimately, the most important aspects of reunion for the adoptee participants were the relational bonds and connection to their birth mothers (and other family members) as well as a sense of belonging within a genetic continuum.
关键词：Adoption;Adoption Triangle;Adoption Quadrangle;Adoptee;Natural or Birth Mother;Natural or Birth Father;Adoptive Parents;Parenthood;Moral and Ethical Aspects;Early Childhood Trauma
