Infant-maternal separation?

Question

Nancy Verrier - an adoptive parent - wrote the book 'Primal Wound' written in 1993 - which for many adoptees - validated feelings of loss and trauma from being separated from their first mother.

http://www.nancyverrier.com/prim_book.php#prim

I just found another article extending from Verrier's work - written by an adoptee - Marcy Axness, PhD - titled -

"What Is The Primal Wound? Understanding The Trauma of Infant-Maternal Separation"

http://birthpsychology.com/birthscene/adoption4.html

What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

I do believe in the Primal Wound. I would like say though, that I don't believe that separation trauma or primal wounds come just from adoption related circumstances. There are many other ways that these wounds come into play in peoples lives. Drug abuse, complicated pregnancies that involve medical internvention ( external inversions ), complications during birth / hospital intervention, Trauma where the child requires the NICU just for survival, Post Partum Depression where mothers don't want to hold or nurse their children. This ISN'T JUST ABOUT ADOPTION AND SEPARATION. This is scientifically and psychologically documented trauma that exists.

Good set of links Possum! Here are some more to add to them!

Alice Miller - http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php

ATLC - http://www.atlc.org/

BTF ( birthing the future ) http://www.birthingthefuture.com/btf_ind...

Child Trauma academy - http://childtraumaacademy.org/default.as...

Trauma and Attachment therapy

Fetal Psychology - http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psychtod...

Infant Mental Health I - http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/schore-200...

Infant Mental Health II - http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/schore-200...

Memory Trauma and Healing - http://www.traumahealing.com/art_memory....

Understanding Childhood Trauma - http://www.traumahealing.com/art_childho...

i believe to have posted some pretty credible links that I do hope suzysunshine reads. I am actually concerned about her, she's been like this for years, and is also a poster on Craigslist. She bashes adoptees who speak about any trauma and replies with broad sweeping statements such as she has done on this thread and many others on this forum. She has nothing, however to back it up and claims she doesn't need any information. Her posts scream "denial" and "pain" to me, and I hope she knows that its okay to "feel" anything other than "grateful" or a "need to please AP's". She's so "classic" koolaid suppressed adoptee, its not even funny.  

ETA: more on primal wound. I felt like Nancy Verrier blamed the adoptees for the trauma and I wanted to correct, that I don't think its the adoptees fault at all. I don't think we're the fault here and its not something that can just be "cured" overnight. Its not like a sickness or a disease. Its a coping mechanism that comes from serious trauma to infants, babies and children.

Answer 2

thanks for refering good books

Answer 3

As an adoptee and the mom of two biological children, I believe the primal wound theory is hogwash.  I don't have any memory of being in my mother's womb and I don't feel any loss of being separated from a mother who I never knew.

On the other hand, I have two biological children who I bonded with during the pregnancy and I loved them even before I knew them or saw them.  But that doesn't mean that they knew me or loved me before they saw me. I'm sure they recognized my voice and the rhythm of my breathing at the time that they heard it but newborns can't remember things from one hour to the next in the early weeks of life.  

I have a lot of friends who feel like aliens in their family even though they are not adopted.  They usually just blame their problems on their parents or somebody else. People just look for others to blame their problems on because it is just too hard to think it could be our own fault.

The primal wound theory is just used as an excuse, in my opinion.

Answer 4

I think it is as misguided an destructive as The Primal Wound. It is heartbreaking to see adoption used as a stage to work out personal problems, particularly when the proponents seeks to place their issues firmly in the laps of happy adoptive families.

It's just sad.

I wanted to add a note to adoptive parents. Please remember that the vast majority of adopted people would never dream of visiting a site or forum centered around adoption because it is simply a non issue for most of us. Until I became an adoptive parent and wanted to network and help people considering adoption I NEVER looked at anything like this.

When I did I was so heartbroken to see that a troubled minority with a clear agenda had chosen to speak for adopted people.

Please know that your family will be just fine and that in any group you'll have trouble individuals and outliers.

Answer 5

I totally believe in the Primal Wound.  How shocking that people in this day and age don't believe we have a pre-cognitive memory and seem to believe that all babies are blank slates!

Just take a look at studies of babies separated from their Moms when they are put into incubators - it's self-explanatory, they are distressed!  Where's Mom?!

This theory was strengthened for me when I had my own kids.  There is nothing like a bond between mother and child and that bond is not ready to be broken until the child is grown.

I was not a blank slate and I genuinely missed my mother.  The effects are long-lasting, just like any other trauma.    

e.g.  Some people have a fear of dogs but can't 'remember' a traumatic event involving a dog.   It may have happened when they were very small.  That 'memory' is carried with them in their subconscious memory despite the fact that they cannot consciously remember the traumatic event KWIM?  

It's hard to explain but people who don't want to understand just won't.  It's WILFUL ignorance kinda 'say it ain't so, I won't believe it' LOL

People have alot of sympathy for folks who, say, lose their mother in childbirth or infancy - oh, except if you were adopted after losing your mother - 'cos that's just SO different, right?! (rolls eyes and sighs heavily)

The Secret Life of the Unborn Child is also very interesting reading.

Answer 6

Verrier's work is critical for understanding the loss involved in adoption.

Sad that one commenter thinks those bad adoptees are speaking for eveyrone.  The reality is that the only voices heard in adopt-o-land are those from the agencies and adoptive parents.  Mothers and adoptees are ignored or ridiculed if they dare state an opinion that is contrary to the fantasy view of adoption.

Listen to mothers and adoptees to learn more, read their books and blogs.  Avoid PAPs, APs and agencies - they don't like to explore adoption in depth because doing so will reveal major problems.

Answer 7

[Please remember that the vast majority of adopted people would never dream of visiting a site or forum centered around adoption because it is simply a non issue for most of us.]

You're generalizing, which is something you can't do in adoption, no matter how true it may be for some people.

Although I do agree that adoption isn't an issue for some adopted adults.

Problem is, to speak for us is ignoring what WE feel.

ETA: I haven't read the Primal Wound. I do believe that being separated from my first mother will have created a loss that might never ever fully heal, but I do not believe that it will ruin my life.

So, yes I do believe in it in a basic extent, but I don't praise it as being THE best thing for adoptees.

Some adoptees believe they have loss. Some don't. The thing that frustrates me is that the ones who do have loss are dismissed because people only choose to believe the ones that don't.

Answer 8

When I first heard about the Primal Wound, I totally rejected the idea.  However I came across Verrier's work referenced in absolutely EVERY serious writing about adoption.  I reluctantly decided to read her book, The Primal Wound, just to be able to refute her theories with reason and logic.

As I read The Primal Wound, I often found myself thinking about my own pregnancies and my experiences with my own newborn children thinking:  "Well, of course!"  As a mother, I found the book's theories completely believable and supported by my own personal experiences.

However, if the theory of this primal connection between mother and child exists for my children, then certainly it existed for me too.  This is a tough book to read as the child.  And it was a difficult shift in my thinking to accept that I did indeed suffer from the separation from my birth mother.  I do beleive that I have a primal wound.  That does not mean that the rest of my life has been ruined or that I am now unable to live a happy fulfilling life.  It does however make me more aware of why I am the way I am and why I do some of the things that I do.  

I certainly hope that AP's can read The Primal Wound and ponder its ascertations with an open mind and an open heart.  To reject out-right a book that is so widely recognized as source material in the discussions about adoption is foolish.  Why reject a window into the possible working of an adopted child's mind and heart?

Thanks for the recommendations for other related writing.