Editorial N° 5

Editorial*

Anna Maria Nicolò, Graciela Consoli

Upon the arrival of an adopted child two worlds and two histories meet, those of the adopted child and those of the adopting parents and a new family and new narrative begin to unfold. New family forces which were not foreseen come into play and even the Oedipus dynamic seems to articulate itself in a different way, and the child’s family story leads back to a past that has never been buried but was also not explored.

In these cases what is filiation? What does it mean to be part of a filiation? Many elements converge in these processes, some are fantasmatic and others very real. As Eiguer affirms, the link of cohabitation may also reinforce both the affiliation link between the family members and the creation of new affections when inserting people into the network of relatives.

The process of affiliation favours the feeling of family unity (A. Eiguer, 2004). Also in the case of the adopting families, Eiguer says that daily life, which is made up of meals, games, conversation, shared worry and much more, reinforces the family being. In this complex of dynamics and articulated dimension, the child inputs his own entry into the filiation through his “insertion into the “home” which includes inside itself, traces of belonging to the family.” The family home as Eiguer has repeatedly explained, is a complex dimension and not only a physical container. Naturally, all that then becomes more complicated in situations of adoption where processes of awareness and non-awareness of huge weight exist, and among other things: affection, recognition, fear, hate, feelings of being an outsider, fear of being abandoned, feelings of being abducted and of abducting, curiosity towards the parent and the child towards this new turbulence which appears on the stage and which incarnates in the other. Mourning and attempts at repair also appear on the scene.

Regarding biological parenthood, some authors have already spoken about mourning. For example, Klein (1969) underlined that for good parenting it is necessary to tolerate any destructive impulses towards the parents and in turn, towards the child. So, in our opinion (Nicolò, 1992), one relevant aspect of parenthood is connected to the working through of mourning with the use of the adult part of our mind and with the need and capacity of repairing parts of the Self or our parents in the other, in the child.

“Each child with its entry into the world, with its healthy being, with its ability of loving, its representation of generational continuity after death, makes up the testimony of something valid and constructive in a parent. Then, with his own existence, he repairs the parent’s self. Besides having and educating a child, with the obvious identification which is derived from our parents, in a certain sense he forms a fantasmatic way of repairing the parents and correcting some of the aspects of the relationship with the parents.” What can be said then about the necessary mourning that underlies the formation and development of an adopting family? As Perez Testor affirms in this issue, deep mourning in both parents and children and the working through depends on the acceptance of the adopted child and the development of the new family, because parental expectations depend on non-worked through mourning that are in turn, able to condition the child.

Masui’s original work moves along these same lines, that is, that through the analysis of the tale of Pinocchio the idea of abandonment of adopted children is underlined and, above all, the family network is characterised by the existence of lies. According to the author, it is in the link of adoption that lies are rooted and that in their repetition they should be considered as an impasse of symbolisation that is present in these families and, further, that they are also the manifestation of the narcissism pathology of these family mechanisms.

Naturally, however, these affiliation processes of adopted children, and, in particular as Nicolò shows, in international adoption, constitute a challenge to the construction of both the new family’s identity and the adopted child’s. A difficulty that manifests itself particularly during adolescence which is a crucial moment for the restructuring of identity and the processes of subjectivation. How can we not remember what Grinberg says about the breakdown of social links that is able to produce depressive anguish and a sensation of not belonging and also produce the loss of feeling of having a role in the community or family whilst the breakdown of a spatial link produces states of mental confusion, disorganisation and depersonalisation?

One of the important ideas that is examined in this issue is the technique of intervention in such cases. In these dimensions the therapy and therapist play a crucial role.

What can be done in order to promote the affiliation of the adopted child? What can be done when facing a trauma which repeats itself? What can be done with the difficult experience of national or international adoption?

Various authors have provided significant and different answers but everyone agrees with the importance of narration that is articulated in a different way. Beginning from Ferenczi’s theory about the effects of the trauma, Eiguer shows how effective narration really is in these situations where post-traumatic defences are in place. With these difficulties the family plays a specific role and in it, as Eiguer states, the narrative reconstruction has to be carried out in a collective way.

“The narrative that one constructs is not so important neither are the possible quantity of stories that may emerge,” says Nicolò in her work. “What is central though is the type of process of narrativecreation that is activated between children and parents which places all the members inside a continuum.”  Artoni lingers on the idea of narration whilst Nicolò speaks about the necessary “process of narrative-creation” which allows one to chose and repossess the family’s “ narrative store,” the “memory base thanks to which the base fabric of every biography can be woven,” as Aulagnier says. Amongst other things, the narrative dimension is very important in the adopting family and  according to Eiguer, especially important is the narrative of the child who is saved, the being elected is present, and each partner in this interaction clings to the story, including the therapist whose personal story is echoed in the story of the family.  In families, according to Rozemberg, the family stories in question will make up a plot in which the adopted child will nestle. The combined narratives of belief that act as social organisers will also intersect with the adopted child’s family story and will also show the plaiting of the social ideal and the subjectivity of the singular person.

All the articles in this issue provide us with an ample panorama of the complicated process of adoption. Each of the authors, from their own points of view, shows us the various difficulties that are present for both those who adopt and for those who are adopted.

* We thanks Francesca Enuncio for her help.