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Playing Nancy Verrier - The Primal Wound
Mon, 2008-08-11 14:06 - Kerry
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Nancy Verrier is the author of the Primal Wound. The mother of an adopted daughter and a biological daughter, Verrier's groundbreaking book changed the way we think about the far-reaching consequences of adoption. [This first part includes discussion about trauma, family identity, birth certificicates/birth records, rejection and abandonment] Part 2 can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT8arjSziKk Part 3 can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBa1YBdEC4
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La blessure primitive.
I have read the book of Nancy Newton-Verrier in french "L'enfant adopté. Comprendre la blessure primitive".
It was translated by a belgian doctor Francoise Hallet.
An excellent book that helps us to understand many things.
I highly recommend reading the book
Martes foina
Grief and Bereavement
I have read this book, too... well after I finished Nursing School.
I found much of her thinking/theory-making comes from the basic principles of grief and bereavement, such as described here: "Infant/Child Response to Grief", http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/5343
What bothers me, plain and simple about this book is this: As more people are "called to adoption", there are more people prescribing to this "first-wound" idea, and finding therapies to address the attachment issues loss and grief bring a child. If you listen to her video, she describes the first few years of life as being pivotal to the brain's ability to develop emotional attachment and a sense of adaptation for the now-removed child. [This time-frame mirrors the RAD rhetoric, which seems to be based more upon Erickson's theories, than Verrier's.]
Where is this book-buying and theory-following taking the adoptee these days? More and more, The "well-read" AP's are taking normally grieving children to aggressive attachment "specialists" and to doctors who prescribe pills for issues like ADD and other "genetic disorders caused by the birth-family".
If there is indeed a wound caused by maternal relinquishment, why is that a practice that's so heavily supported by so many industries? If we are becoming an age of the walking wounded, why aren't more first-mothers given the instructional support they need so they can KEEP their babies, and not damage them, (as Verrier suggests mothers are doing when they leave their children)?
Me thinketh Verrier forgets there is profound corruption behind adoption practices, and this has not changed over the decades. Truth is, not all babies are given away... there are MANY children who are taken/stolen, because there is a huge paying market for these little parcels of love and joy . What says she, then, in terms of finding help for the mother-child relationship?
As an adoptee, I say, an ounce of prevention is far more valuable than a pound of cure.
reading the wound
I read the Primal Wound too, several years ago and while it is certainly a valuable book, it didn't really tell me something I didn't already know. At the time I read quite a lot of books about adoption and the only one that really made an impression was a Dutch book by Greetje van Egmond, called Bodemloos bestaan (bottomless existance), which is written by a Dutch adoptive mother and describes in chronological order the struggles she experienced with her adopted daughter from Colombia. While reading the book I found myself yelling at the author you dumb fuck, stupid bitch... As an adoptee I could so much understand what the girl wa going through and how the actions of the adoptive mother were ineffective and often only contributing to the situation. Reading that book was important to me, because it made me understand better what I already knew, but didn't really had put into words for myself.
After that experience the Primal Wound didn't do all that much for me. I already had read books on child development and that combined with my own adoption experience, Nancy Verrier wasn't able to surprise me with anything she said.
I know her book is controversial, especially among adoptees. I believe it is widely read and appreciated by adoptive parents, but it finds a lot of resistance among adoptees. It is mostly found to be stigmatizing, because the book assumes that all adoptees have a primal wound. Some adoptees claim to have not a single problem usually attributed to the primal wound and feel they are pushed to admit they have problems they don't feel they have.
not much
not much of a reader anymore, especially of psychology.
i have only read one adoption book thus far, "outsiders within" which is an anthology of narratives with an excellent, excellent introduction on transracial adoption by the editors.
i think child psychology reading, in general, has never told me anything i didn't already know.
i think whoever has to read those to figure out children is just basically a dumb fuck in the first place.
Language of blood
I have not read Outsiders Within, but one of it´s authors wrote Language of Blood - Jane trenka. It was my birthday present last year for all my friends... I can really recommend it.
that was a little harsh
but still...
child psychology is all a matter of walking in their shoes, which is something anyone can do, if they just stop and think for two seconds.
had some nice conversations with Jane. thoughtful, intelligent woman and i look forward to reading it soon.
:)
Did anyone else feel like Primal Wound put the problems and responsibility of trauma onto the child? As if its "our" fault?
Protecting Privacy
One of the most disturbing assumptions many make, in terms of the Open-Record debate, (which Verrier tries to skate over in this 1st- part video), is this notion that a piece of paper is going to lead the adoptee to his/her own family lineage. At 5:15 she begins saying, "It's not a big deal", to open records. She claims that no one ever argued about the logic behind confidentiality and how mothers were never promised anything. "They were threatened, but never promised". Confidentiality and promises are not argued because there are some people who have a past no one wants resurrected. [Makes sense no law-maker wants to make waves with "past-discretion's", eh?]
There is indeed a logic to this "don't ask, don't tell policy". What does not get discussed, in open public, is the number of women who have been raped by family members, or by members of their church, who were then forced to birth the by-product unprotected sex brings -- all because abortion was illegal and immoral. Suddenly "family name" becomes a whole new game of guilt and shame... one "caused" by the snooping bastard who should have left well-enough alone.
Common sense dictates, there are no Open Records because certain identities need protection. Meanwhile, back at the real-life realities of closed-era adoption... who gets mad and defensive when the adult child starts asking questions? Who gets hurt when policy-makers say "no" to the opening of a birth record? Who gets upset when a child tries to face the mother who was raped by a father, brother, or a complete stranger? The people not hurt by open records are the people who are well protected, and dare I add, highly respected.
["Problems with the Paper Chase", http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/15474, gives a real-life example of how confidentiality becomes a curse to those seeking honest answers.]
I think if Verrier was an adoptee, she would think opening records and living with lies, is indeed, a VERY BIG deal.