Post-Adoption Counseling
Adoption is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but it requires an often difficult and heart wrenching decision. Though rooted in love, it can still lead to a variety of mental health challenges. Birth parents are often the forgotten part of the adoption triad but deserve to be treated with the utmost compassion and care.
Post-adoption counseling for individuals who have placed their children for adoption is vital for the healing process. Difficulties with self-worth, strained relationships, or depression are just a handful of the issues that birth parents need to work through in order to improve their mental health.
Therapy can help you process these challenges more effectively.
Birth Parents & Grief
Often, the grief experienced by birth parents is not openly acknowledged or supported by society which can lead to further isolation and loneliness. A skilled therapist can help a birth parent recognize and validate their loss. Processing this grief in a healthy way is essential for long-term emotional healing and for preventing more severe mental health challenges later on.
Many birth parents may carry feelings of guilt and shame, even when they know the decision was made with the child’s best interest in mind. Therapy can help separate those feelings from their sense of self-worth.
The emotional effects of adoption don’t have an expiration date. Birth parents may need different types of support at various stages of life. Such as on the child’s birthday, when entering new relationships, or when experiencing parenthood again. Long-term access to therapy ensures that birth parents have a resource available whenever they need to revisit and process their adoption journey.
Future for Birth Parents in Adoption
Therapy is not about erasing the pain of adoption. It is about helping birth parents carry it in a way that honors their story. By providing a space for healing, therapy empowers birth parents to move forward with grace and confidence.
Every adoption story deserves to include the care and support that birth parents need beyond the adoption journey.
You do not have to go through this alone. We want to help.
Kentucky United Methodist Children’s Homes offers post-placement counseling for birth parents and single birth mothers in the adoption process. If you or someone you love is seeking mental health services, email adopt@kyumh.org or call (270) 683-3723 for referral.
