Playing out, not acting out: The development of the capacity to play in the therapy of children who are ‘in transition’ from fostering to adoption

Anxieties about change and managing transitions are bound to be intense during the weeks in which a young – and inevitably emotionally damaged – child has to fi nd a way of parting with the comparative security of a foster home and joining the (hopefully) lifetime adoptive family that will continue this caring. The responsibilities of all the adults involved, to try to make what feels like a bodily transplant of a young and vulnerable child from one family to another, ‘take’ rather than be rejected, are enormous. The child’s anxieties are naturally greater, given all the failings of adults in their past.