ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emotional and developmental risks inherent in fostering and adoption through separating infants from their mothers, whether due to voluntary relinquishment for adoption or removal from the birth family because of neglect and/or abuse. Loss is the bedrock on which the social and legal edifices of adoption are built. Parents talk about their own adoption issues, and are supported in understanding their child's behaviour and responding with empathy. The sessions have a simple structure to help adoptive parents and children feel safe and anticipate the activities. The music therapy space enables a child to regress and be re-parented by her adoptive mother in a nurturing, holding environment where they can experience one another anew, bonding together. Ethnic diversity is addressed, using miniature figures/soft toys of different colours, so that similarities and differences between the child and birth or adoptive family members can be positively acknowledged.
