Fallacies of the Angry Adoptee and Happy Adoptee Dichotomy: Are there 5 Stages of Being an Adult Adoptee?

Too often are adoptees assigned to two different categories, either "angry" or "happy," usually based on how stereotypical or counter-stereotypical what they have to say about being adopted is.  This false dichotomy is used to establish the framework by which adoption and being adopted can be discussed.  All it takes for an adoptee to be invalidated and removed from consideration at the table of adoption discourse is for someone else to label them "angry adoptee" and therefore irrational--incapable of having a valid view of something they've lived for most of their lives.  Those who dish out the invalidating labels "angry," "angsty," "ungrateful" (etc.) control the adoption discourse, for how easy it is to discount one perspective or another with the "angry" label.  This false dichotomy perpetuates itself by picking and choosing which narratives are worthy of being listened to and as a result, bits of information that would correct this viewpoint are lost.  All of the different feelings and views are all part of being adopted.

So are there "types" of adoptees and if not two then how many?  A 2007 (Penny, Borders, and Portnoy) study I recently came across says it is more like "phases" and they categorize a total of five.

As for some background on this topic: what is most widely accepted in the development of adoptees is the work by Brodzinsky, Schechter, and Henig, well described in their book "Being Adopted: the Lifelong Search for Self" (1993).  Brodzinsky et. al. compare an adoptee's lifespan development and how an adoptee must complete the same developmental tasks as others, but with additional challenges, using widely accepted theories such as those by Erikson and Piaget.

In their book (1993), Brodzinsky et. al. suggest that an adoptee's narrative and view of adoption changes throughout their lifetime based on their changing view of life, maturity, and strengthening of reasoning skills as they get older. For example, a child is more likely to see adoption as all positive, even an exciting and magical story, because of the way children process information. When adolescents gain the ability to process information more logically, including weighing conflicting themes, is when conflict and ambiguity may arise in how an adoptee views adoption. Under this theory, however, it would seem that adoptees would all have to think similarly about adoption during the same developmental phase. And perhaps generally speaking it is true that children are more likely to see adoption as unquestioningly positive and those, especially entering into the life stage of generativity, would be more likely to be aware of their losses in adoption. But why is the simplistic/positive view of adoption that Brodzinsky et. al. describe for children also commonly held by adult adoptees of all ages and stages of development? Brodzinsky et. al. suggest that this is because these adult adoptees are either in denial or genuinely have an absence of issues with adoption and being adopted.

In this study, the Penny (whom I believe is an adult adoptee) et. al. gathered the variation in views and feelings about being adopted by adoptees, not across the lifespan, but in what they classify as the "mid-life" age group.  The mean age of the subjects was 42 years (all adopted as infants) and all five phases of working out adoption issues were present within this one age group.

Empirical research on adoption is hard to come by, especially when it comes to research on adult adoptees.  While for their theory, Brodzinsky et. al. use their own experiences with thousands of adoptees in their practice and research as well as empirical data to support their work, their concept of how adoptees complete each developmental task is theoretical.  Penny et. al. acknowledge this, noting that adoption research is usually done to investigate mental health problems adoptees have or to record data about search and reunion.  This particular study was in fact inspired by a study 7 years prior that covered the topic of adoptee mental health.  About the study from 2000, they noted:

"To our surprise, almost all (80%) of the adult adoptees wrote lengthy narrative responses that described their life stories, including relationships with adoptive parents, feelings about being adopted, and their efforts to deal with adoption issues, as well as their views of adoption policies and laws (e.g. closed records).  Some responses were as long as several typed pages that were attached to the back of the survey.  These narratives were poignant, touching, heart-wrenching, often filled with anger, and sometimes, imbued with a sense of peace.  Clearly these adoptees had something they were compelled to share" (page 2).

The researchers described what they felt were clearly identifiable "phases" of being adopted among the adult adoptee narratives and developed the study I'm discussing in this post to test their hypothesis that adoptees would fit into one of the five phases they have defined.  They described these five phases as being similar to currently accepted models of grief and loss (see the 5 Stages of Grief and Loss first theorized by Kubler-Ross here).

"It appeared to us that there were clearly recognizable and distinct patterns in the adoptees' narratives, which reflected their efforts to find meaning in, or to reconstruct, adoption issues within the framework of midlife review" (page 2).

("Midlife review" refers to an individual's focus on the meaning of life as described by Erikson's 7th stage of development, where individuals ages 35 to 55 face the task of being productive, rather than stagnating).

The five phases are as follows:

1. "No Awareness/Denying Awareness:"  Adoption is viewed positively and there is no acknowledgement or awareness of any adoption issues.
2. "Emerging Awareness:"  while still holding a positive view of adoption, the adoptee begins to see and acknowledge issues.  Curiosity in their original family, search, and reunion is stirring.  The adoptee may be hesitant in exploring the emerging desire to search or learn more out of obligation to the adoptive family and fear of what others might think (e.g. adoptees who say they will wait until their APs pass away to search).
3. "Drowning in Awareness:"  this stage is described almost as if an adoptee has been overwhelmed by the realization of losses.  They express anger and resentment about being adopted.
4. "Reemerging From Awareness:" an adoptee recognizes both good and bad things about being adopted and attempts to integrate their mixed feelings and accept it.
5. "Finding Peace:" the adoptee has found peace or is moving toward peace.  Has found considerable healing.  They feel they have overcome.

The dichotomy of the "bad" adoptee who is angry and allegedly only feels the way they do because they had bad parents and a rotten childhood vs. the "good" adoptee who is happy, was raised right, and has the only valid perspective is old and flawed.  Even since Brodzinsky et. al.  published their theoretical perspectives in 1993 this false dichotomy has not faded away as rapidly as it should.  Even this study suggests that an adoptee may be stuck in one stage or another because their parents were open to communicating about adoption or their adoptive family accepted them--which for some adoptees may be accurate but certainly not for all (not for me) and not so cut and dry as in the happy/angry dichotomy.  The "angry" "happy" dichotomy has served too well as a way of eliminating narratives no one likes to hear.  Adoptee viewpoints, if not in phases, seem to be on some sort of spectrum where adoption issues and loss are processed bit by bit.  Adoptees may be held back from entering and progressing through the phases by various things such as fear of their parents being hurt (as "phase one" adoptees described in the study) other issues.

The data presented in this study is important to know.  That various views and transitions within one's view of adoption are a normal, not deviant, part of being adopted.  The adoptees in this study were also evaluated using multiple, widely accepted scales and models (e.g. "The Purpose in Life Test," "The Sensitivity to Rejection Scale," "The Mid-Life Identity Concerns Scale" so on and so forth).  This provided insight on the needs of the adult adoptees in various "phases."  For example, it was found that adoptees who have entered into "Phase Three" are more likely than those who are in other "phases" to experience depression and need the support of others.

"When asked how much adoption has affected who you are, Phase 2 adoptees were the most ambivalent.  Two thirds of respondents at Phases 1 and 5 along with more than 90% of respondents at Phases 3 and 4 chose either quite a bit or has affected all aspects of my life" (page 6).

 When first embarking on reading the description of the "phases," I wondered what the 5th "phase" would be.  I half-assumed that it would simply say something to the nature of "by this phase, adoptee has learned to shove it and that being adopted isn't all that bad."  This is not what I found.  Rather, the "Phase Five" adoptee was described as someone who still acknowledged the problems, issues, and complexities in adoption but had seemed to have found considerable healing throughout the process of coming to terms with adoptedness in order to feel some sense of peace.  Not the "all adoption is wonderful lala-land" people demand adoptees have in order to be awarded the status of "peaceful" by others.  No.  The adoptee had found their own peace.

I do not mean to present any "phase" as being better than another as it is all part of living an adoptee's life.  But I find it remarkable that even in the "peace" phase, complexities and acknowledgement of issues in adoption exists.  In my humble opinion, this refutes another stereotypical notion--that some adoptees only feel the way that they do because of their perception.  In other words, problems exist in adoption only in the minds of certain adoptees but are not the reality.  In actuality, adoptees in four of the five "phases" all acknowledge issues but focus with different intensity depending on which "phase" they are in.  Issues and problems are the reality and this means people need to start listening to adoptees and stop dismissing.


This study was a preliminary look into this topic.  Follow-up research is needed.  The study did not cover if adoptees move sequentially through each stage, what causes a move from one stage to another, if stages are ever skipped, or if new issues arising in the lifespan can cause an adoptee to revert from one stage back to another, so on and so forth.

Whether it is a correct model or not, it is certainly a step in the right direction.  I liked this study because the model it describes was developed by listening to how adoptees already feel as opposed to deciding how it would be "normal" for adoptees to feel and suggesting that any adoptee who doesn't conform is "bad."  There is no "good adoptee" or "bad adoptee."  What some people describe as "most adoptees are happy, the unhappy adoptees are in a minority" is put into better perspective here.  There is no "most adoptees feel this way or that way and the rest are simply deviant."  As this empirical data would suggest, all views and perspectives adoptees have are part of a pattern of being adopted.

I am thus really (really, really, really) interested in hearing what other adult adoptees think.  Is this a plausible model for how adoptees process adoption?  Should there be more phases or fewer?  Is this something you identify with as an adoptee?

**the theme of the "good/happy" adoptee and "bad/angry" adoptee was incorporated into this post by me and was not a part of the aforementioned study.

Reference:

Penny, J., Borders, L., & Portnoy, F. (2007). Reconstruction of Adoption Issues: Delineation of Five Phases Among Adult Adoptees. Journal of Counseling & Development, 85(1), 30-41

Photo credit: vegadsl