ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on case material, on publications of the research group, and on a number of other psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic publications on the subject of disclosure of adoption. The question of when children should be told about their being adopted has been debated in the adoption literature for at least four decades, and we review below a spectrum of opinions. However, a subject of a more practical nature kept recurring, especially on the occasions when we presented some of these findings for discussion outside the research group. The safest rule is to start telling almost before he can understand what "adopted" means', writes Margaret Kornitzer. In the United States a number of psychoanalytic writers have opposed very early disclosure of adoption information. The most convincing evidence, we think, is provided by research aimed at finding out what adopted people themselves think.
