The present paper discusses the specificities of the adoptive parenthood, while pointing out remarkable differences on the constitution of adoptive parents' identity, and when defining important elements for a preventive assistance. In the adoption process, the child is placed into a new family in a way, which is very different from a natural birth, that is, with a pre-adoptive life story and two couples of parents. When the adoptive parenthood is established, from the impossibility of generating a biological child, mourning and losses are brought to the scenery and, thus, need to be elaborated. Conscious factors (the sterility, the demands from society, the pre-adoptive life story, the biological parents, the prejudices) and unconscious factors (fears, desires, fantasies, each consort's demands) need to be considered and worked out. It is essential that candidates to parents can understand their own psychological dynamics, in order to be in condition of establishing the parameters for achieving a healthful relationship with their new child in the future.
Adoption; identity; difference