The Many Paths of Adoption

South African psychotherapists Jordaan and Berman have described their very extensive experience in working with adoptees, birth mothers and adoptive parents in a book. Not a theoretical reference work or methodological description, but a book that reads like a novel. This approach makes it interesting for both professionals and those personally involved.

The four main characters, adopted, birth mother or adoptive parent and their partners and family members are followed for an entire calendar year. The feelings they struggle with - fear, shame, desire, obligation, disappointment and euphoria - are described credibly. The concrete events (will this complicated search also have the desired outcome?) are compelling, also for the reader who knows nothing about the phenomenon of birth and adoption.

A Road Called Adoption was published in English in South Africa in 1996. Years later, a social worker at Fiom came across the book by chance. The content matched his work and he passed it on to a limited group of colleagues and clients who found recognition and inspiration in it. The Stichting Ambulante Fiom translated the book into Dutch on the occasion of its 75th anniversary.