Fertility Blog

Beth Kozan now spends her time as a Personal Adoption Counselor. In her years of adoption agency work, she frequently found it difficult to locate a therapist familiar with adoption issues. Because her first training was to be a therapist, it is an easy and natural fit for her. She uses group and individual sessions, art therapy and journal writing, and has her clients explore the personal meaning of adoption in their lives. These are some of the questions, concerns and joys that Beth addresses in her practice: “Adoption is often thought of as a joyful event joining a child who needs a family with a family who needs a child. In this scenario, the birth parents -- if considered at all – fade quietly into the background. But the adopted child, as he or she grows, gradually becomes aware of questions their parents can’t answer: Who do I look like? Why am I athletic while no one else in my family is? An adoptive parent reflects back to the time of placement and wonders Did the birth mother recover from the grief we saw at the hospital? And adoptive parents find that becoming parents through adoption doesn’t cure the longing for the child they might have made together, especially when your best friend announces she’s pregnant -- with her fourth child!” Beth has written her first book, Adoption: More Than By Chance, and is beginning her second book, Helping the Birth Mother You Know. She reviews adoption related media at www.bibliotherapy4adoption.com.