Once upon a time... A case study on adoption history and stories

Abstract

An intervention research based on an instrumental case study aimed at verifying the effects of storytelling on the anxiety resulting from the adoption of an older child and at assessing the child integration into the foster family. The adoptive mother and father of a six-year-old boy participated in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with the adoptive parents. The story-drawing procedure and children's storytelling sessions sharing stories about adoption were used with the child. The results revealed the importance of stories to promote reflections and elaborations on the adoption process, help the contact with primitive anxieties, and facilitate the integration into the new family. Although the use of storytelling provides support to the child, we identified the need to provide psychological support to the family in order to foster the establishment of affective ties.

Keywords:
Adoption; Child; Storytelling; Psychoanalysis