ABSTRACT
“Adoption and Loneliness” looks at some of the specifics of loneliness in the lives of children adopted from social services care and adopters. It explores the depth and complexity of the emotions connected to loneliness which circulate within adoptive families for the child and parents; it considers some of the dissonance and alienating factors between those who are familiar with that life journey and those outside it. Consideration is given to the unusually existential nature of the sense of aloneness compared to the lives of the majority of birth children and their families who live within a social norm to which adopted children and their families have a different relation. In particular, the uncertain and unpredictable forms of loneliness that come from being removed from birth parents and placed by a government system elsewhere are presented in an introductory way. The subsequent journey to, hopefully, feeling less lonely through adoption and settling into family life is considered, with a view to developing understanding for these children from care and for their adoptive families; an understanding about sensitivity to the prevalence, nature and possible resolutions for loneliness as a personal and interpersonal difficulty.
