Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a young boy with these issue,s I found this book to be far too difficult to read and take in. Infact just reading the product description written above by amazon themselves is a good example of the technicality of the discussions inside. Whilst I'm sure this is a great book for specialists in this field, not one to read for the average parent/ carer of a child with these issues looking for support and a place to learn more.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a young boy with these issue,s I found this book to be far too difficult to read and take in. Infact just reading the product description written above by amazon themselves is a good example of the technicality of the discussions inside. Whilst I'm sure this is a great book for specialists in this field, not one to read for the average parent/ carer of a child with these issues looking for support and a place to learn more.

Well intentioned but confusing, 11 Apr 2008
We were also asked to read this as part of adoption assessment. There's no doubt that there's a lot of useful information, particularly for children who have suffered a particularly rough start in life and anything that helps them is to be supported. However the bit I didn't like was constantly suggesting an approach and then saying (in bold) BUT DON'T DO THIS IF.. I would have found it more helpful to have chapters split out for children who have been subject to different types of abuse or neglect before being adopted or fostered as at least you could read a whole section that might be more appropriate to your child.
Some of the suggestions I just found very odd - e.g putting honey on child's mouth and then licking it off yourself or letting your child streak in the rain? I understand what the author is trying to achieve but I found it a bit off-beat for me.

Annoyingly written and for Simpletons, 31 Jan 2008
Unfortunately we were told to buy and read this book during our "assessment" period. It is the most annoying book to read; constantly changing between refering to the child as him/her is enourmously distracting and it is written for those with an IQ of less than 50. I am sure there is a lot of useful information here but someone should really tell the author to get lessons in how to impart information.

Spot on, 28 Mar 2007
I agree with the 2nd review i 1st borrowed this book from the library as we are looking into adopting a toddler, and i have to say that this book is fantastic and i am now going to buy it from amazon !It is full of practical advice alot of it is common sense but sometimes when you're in a situation you can't always think of the most straight forward solution, and this book gives lots & lots of great advice.

Excellent for any adoptive or foster parent, 01 Sep 2006
I'm afraid I have to quite disagree with the previous foster carer who suggested that this book is only useful for those children who have been sexually abused. This is a wonderful book, easy to read, hands-on and parent-friendly. It's intelligently written and backed up with careful research. I cannot recommend it more highly for any adoptive or foster parent. It's a sad fact that today, nearly all children adopted have been through the care system with complex and traumatic histories - they're rarely babies these days. Caroline really understands this and the shock it is to the many parents who are ill-prepared for the pain their child is in.

Useful to those adopting abused children, 05 Feb 2002
I am fostering a bereaved child, and whilst I found some of the advice helpful, I found the book concentrated upon children who had been sexually abused. It would be useful to potential foster carers or adoptive parents of such children.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a young boy with these issue,s I found this book to be far too difficult to read and take in. Infact just reading the product description written above by amazon themselves is a good example of the technicality of the discussions inside. Whilst I'm sure this is a great book for specialists in this field, not one to read for the average parent/ carer of a child with these issues looking for support and a place to learn more.

Well intentioned but confusing, 11 Apr 2008
We were also asked to read this as part of adoption assessment. There's no doubt that there's a lot of useful information, particularly for children who have suffered a particularly rough start in life and anything that helps them is to be supported. However the bit I didn't like was constantly suggesting an approach and then saying (in bold) BUT DON'T DO THIS IF.. I would have found it more helpful to have chapters split out for children who have been subject to different types of abuse or neglect before being adopted or fostered as at least you could read a whole section that might be more appropriate to your child.
Some of the suggestions I just found very odd - e.g putting honey on child's mouth and then licking it off yourself or letting your child streak in the rain? I understand what the author is trying to achieve but I found it a bit off-beat for me.

Annoyingly written and for Simpletons, 31 Jan 2008
Unfortunately we were told to buy and read this book during our "assessment" period. It is the most annoying book to read; constantly changing between refering to the child as him/her is enourmously distracting and it is written for those with an IQ of less than 50. I am sure there is a lot of useful information here but someone should really tell the author to get lessons in how to impart information.

Spot on, 28 Mar 2007
I agree with the 2nd review i 1st borrowed this book from the library as we are looking into adopting a toddler, and i have to say that this book is fantastic and i am now going to buy it from amazon !It is full of practical advice alot of it is common sense but sometimes when you're in a situation you can't always think of the most straight forward solution, and this book gives lots & lots of great advice.

Excellent for any adoptive or foster parent, 01 Sep 2006
I'm afraid I have to quite disagree with the previous foster carer who suggested that this book is only useful for those children who have been sexually abused. This is a wonderful book, easy to read, hands-on and parent-friendly. It's intelligently written and backed up with careful research. I cannot recommend it more highly for any adoptive or foster parent. It's a sad fact that today, nearly all children adopted have been through the care system with complex and traumatic histories - they're rarely babies these days. Caroline really understands this and the shock it is to the many parents who are ill-prepared for the pain their child is in.

Useful to those adopting abused children, 05 Feb 2002
I am fostering a bereaved child, and whilst I found some of the advice helpful, I found the book concentrated upon children who had been sexually abused. It would be useful to potential foster carers or adoptive parents of such children.

adoption, 01 Jan 2006
an excellent book i have even learn't about my 3yr old birth child . This book has really helped me understand about childrens behaviour and how adoption might effect their development what to be expected and what not .this is a must for anybody going through the adoption process.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a young boy with these issue,s I found this book to be far too difficult to read and take in. Infact just reading the product description written above by amazon themselves is a good example of the technicality of the discussions inside. Whilst I'm sure this is a great book for specialists in this field, not one to read for the average parent/ carer of a child with these issues looking for support and a place to learn more.

Well intentioned but confusing, 11 Apr 2008
We were also asked to read this as part of adoption assessment. There's no doubt that there's a lot of useful information, particularly for children who have suffered a particularly rough start in life and anything that helps them is to be supported. However the bit I didn't like was constantly suggesting an approach and then saying (in bold) BUT DON'T DO THIS IF.. I would have found it more helpful to have chapters split out for children who have been subject to different types of abuse or neglect before being adopted or fostered as at least you could read a whole section that might be more appropriate to your child.
Some of the suggestions I just found very odd - e.g putting honey on child's mouth and then licking it off yourself or letting your child streak in the rain? I understand what the author is trying to achieve but I found it a bit off-beat for me.

Annoyingly written and for Simpletons, 31 Jan 2008
Unfortunately we were told to buy and read this book during our "assessment" period. It is the most annoying book to read; constantly changing between refering to the child as him/her is enourmously distracting and it is written for those with an IQ of less than 50. I am sure there is a lot of useful information here but someone should really tell the author to get lessons in how to impart information.

Spot on, 28 Mar 2007
I agree with the 2nd review i 1st borrowed this book from the library as we are looking into adopting a toddler, and i have to say that this book is fantastic and i am now going to buy it from amazon !It is full of practical advice alot of it is common sense but sometimes when you're in a situation you can't always think of the most straight forward solution, and this book gives lots & lots of great advice.

Excellent for any adoptive or foster parent, 01 Sep 2006
I'm afraid I have to quite disagree with the previous foster carer who suggested that this book is only useful for those children who have been sexually abused. This is a wonderful book, easy to read, hands-on and parent-friendly. It's intelligently written and backed up with careful research. I cannot recommend it more highly for any adoptive or foster parent. It's a sad fact that today, nearly all children adopted have been through the care system with complex and traumatic histories - they're rarely babies these days. Caroline really understands this and the shock it is to the many parents who are ill-prepared for the pain their child is in.

Useful to those adopting abused children, 05 Feb 2002
I am fostering a bereaved child, and whilst I found some of the advice helpful, I found the book concentrated upon children who had been sexually abused. It would be useful to potential foster carers or adoptive parents of such children.

adoption, 01 Jan 2006
an excellent book i have even learn't about my 3yr old birth child . This book has really helped me understand about childrens behaviour and how adoption might effect their development what to be expected and what not .this is a must for anybody going through the adoption process.

A good general introduction to adoption, 08 May 2008
I find this book to be a really good introduction to the concept of adoption and why children are adopted. It may not be deep enough for an adopted child, but is ideal as a starting point, or as an introduction to friends and familys' children who are about to have adopted cousins or friends enter their lives. It explains well but without some of the neglect or abuse angles which children from care have experienced, and which some friends and family might feel nervous about revealing to their children. Ideal for age 4-8 or 9.

My New Family, 05 Jul 2006
An excellent book about adoption - a very easy read for our 4 year old, accessible, not too long, good quality pictures make it easy to adapt to your own situation when reading, good explanation of moving from foster carers to adotive family without being too heavy. Our daughter enjoys going back to the booktime and time again when she feels the need and is trying to make sense of it all. Highly recommended to any new adoptive parents to work through with their child(ren).

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a young boy with these issue,s I found this book to be far too difficult to read and take in. Infact just reading the product description written above by amazon themselves is a good example of the technicality of the discussions inside. Whilst I'm sure this is a great book for specialists in this field, not one to read for the average parent/ carer of a child with these issues looking for support and a place to learn more.

Well intentioned but confusing, 11 Apr 2008
We were also asked to read this as part of adoption assessment. There's no doubt that there's a lot of useful information, particularly for children who have suffered a particularly rough start in life and anything that helps them is to be supported. However the bit I didn't like was constantly suggesting an approach and then saying (in bold) BUT DON'T DO THIS IF.. I would have found it more helpful to have chapters split out for children who have been subject to different types of abuse or neglect before being adopted or fostered as at least you could read a whole section that might be more appropriate to your child.
Some of the suggestions I just found very odd - e.g putting honey on child's mouth and then licking it off yourself or letting your child streak in the rain? I understand what the author is trying to achieve but I found it a bit off-beat for me.

Annoyingly written and for Simpletons, 31 Jan 2008
Unfortunately we were told to buy and read this book during our "assessment" period. It is the most annoying book to read; constantly changing between refering to the child as him/her is enourmously distracting and it is written for those with an IQ of less than 50. I am sure there is a lot of useful information here but someone should really tell the author to get lessons in how to impart information.

Spot on, 28 Mar 2007
I agree with the 2nd review i 1st borrowed this book from the library as we are looking into adopting a toddler, and i have to say that this book is fantastic and i am now going to buy it from amazon !It is full of practical advice alot of it is common sense but sometimes when you're in a situation you can't always think of the most straight forward solution, and this book gives lots & lots of great advice.

Excellent for any adoptive or foster parent, 01 Sep 2006
I'm afraid I have to quite disagree with the previous foster carer who suggested that this book is only useful for those children who have been sexually abused. This is a wonderful book, easy to read, hands-on and parent-friendly. It's intelligently written and backed up with careful research. I cannot recommend it more highly for any adoptive or foster parent. It's a sad fact that today, nearly all children adopted have been through the care system with complex and traumatic histories - they're rarely babies these days. Caroline really understands this and the shock it is to the many parents who are ill-prepared for the pain their child is in.

Useful to those adopting abused children, 05 Feb 2002
I am fostering a bereaved child, and whilst I found some of the advice helpful, I found the book concentrated upon children who had been sexually abused. It would be useful to potential foster carers or adoptive parents of such children.

adoption, 01 Jan 2006
an excellent book i have even learn't about my 3yr old birth child . This book has really helped me understand about childrens behaviour and how adoption might effect their development what to be expected and what not .this is a must for anybody going through the adoption process.

A good general introduction to adoption, 08 May 2008
I find this book to be a really good introduction to the concept of adoption and why children are adopted. It may not be deep enough for an adopted child, but is ideal as a starting point, or as an introduction to friends and familys' children who are about to have adopted cousins or friends enter their lives. It explains well but without some of the neglect or abuse angles which children from care have experienced, and which some friends and family might feel nervous about revealing to their children. Ideal for age 4-8 or 9.

My New Family, 05 Jul 2006
An excellent book about adoption - a very easy read for our 4 year old, accessible, not too long, good quality pictures make it easy to adapt to your own situation when reading, good explanation of moving from foster carers to adotive family without being too heavy. Our daughter enjoys going back to the booktime and time again when she feels the need and is trying to make sense of it all. Highly recommended to any new adoptive parents to work through with their child(ren).


The book to start you on the road, 03 Dec 2007
Myself and my husband are at present going through the adoption system and i found this book has helped me in terms of understanding issues that can come up and also getting us through the whole process. it is written in a really easy format and as it is written by an adoptive parent herself there is no lingo just common sense. as it is american i thought it would refer a lot to the american system but this book is useful wherever you live

Very reassuring - this book is like a friend!, 04 Nov 2003
My husband and I are preparing to adopt and this book has been excellent in every way, both emtionally - especially thinking about the relationships with our family, as well as considering the changing environment - something as simple as decorating a room. My best bed time reading for ages. I started out with trepidation but this book is helping me to ask a lot of questions.

Good solid information, very practical book, 31 Jul 1999
This book covers a lot of ground about adoption and really gets into the thoughts of the adoptee and the adopting parents. The sections on Talking about Adoption and Bonding & Attachment are quite good. This edition also contains an updated section on International Adoption which is quite helpful.

More importantly, the back of the book is full of resources and references that you can use for follow-up information.

The only thing that kept this from being 5 stars is that it takes a lot of effort to read the whole thing. Many of the ideas are reinforced over and over again, which is good, but can really sap the reader.

Great job overall though.

Practical, reassuring advice for every adoptive parent., 26 Jun 1998
As a new adoptive parent in 1980, I wanted to know what I could expect. The traditional sources of child care information were not useful to me. They talked about the importance of natural childbirth and breastfeeding to bonding and attachment, but didn't talk about how to breastfeed an adopted child or how a child not born to his parents would grow to love them. I wrote the first edition of "Raising Adopted Children" to let parents know what to expect from the time they took their child home until the time that child leaves home. This new edition of "Raising Adopted Children" reflects changes in adoption over the past 12 years, including the increase in adoptions from China and Eastern Europe and the unique issues arising from those situations. It incorporates the most recent research into various aspects of adoption, including the psychological impact of adoption, and the outcomes for children from orphanages and children who were prenatally exposed to drugs, as well as for children adopted as healthy infants. In addition to 12 more years of research, this book reflects 12 more years of personal experience. My children, just preschoolers when I wrote the first edition, are now 15 and 18. My oldest is leaving home to attend college and my youngest is beginning the quest for identity and independence. I believe I can reassure adoptive parents that the satisfaction of being an adoptive parent continues and the deep love we feel for our children grows.

Not just for adoption, 05 Aug 2008
This book sheds light on the traumas which can affect many babies - not just those given up for adoption. As Ms Verrier points out, the 'Primal Wound' is also experienced by incubator babies. Logically it will also be felt by the babies of selfish, unloving mothers, and even, so some degree, by babies unnecessarily separated from their mother by callous medical regimes. This book has given me insight into myself, my children, and the wounded grandchildren I am now trying to heal.

The best I've Read, 11 Jun 2008
Nancy Verrier adopted a baby when only a couple of days old. She also had her own biological child and she is also a psychologist. You couldn't really get better credentials than this.
I read the book when in my thirties and it was a revelation.
Although it was an emotional read it brought with it an aknowledgement and an understanding of all that I had felt as I grew up and continue to feel as an adult. I was normal, not a victim and not unbalanced.
Having read plenty of books on being an adoptee this is the one where I felt the writer could have been living with me throughout my growing up....she verbalised the intangibilty of all that an adoptee feels and is unable to express. She rationalises the events and their impact on the precognitive self.... and how present behaviours are a direct result of this.
I am in my 50's now and have never leant my copy to anyone in fear of it not being returned. I have only read the book once but the impact was huge and the mere fact it sits on my shelf and i can see it is still there brings a comfort and a knowledge that all can be explained.
Thank you Nancy:)

An adoptive Mum's View, 13 Apr 2008
I heard about this book about 2 years ago and to be honest, I was scared to read it. The reviews implied that it would be uncomfortable reading for me and it loomed on the shelf, often pricking my conscience. Well this week, 'I bit the bullet', so to speak. I am so glad I did. I am not sure I agree with all of the theory but the fact that so many adoptees do, means that it does resonate with their experience and they are the important ones in the adoption triad.
I think that the concept of the huge pain originating from the original separation makes perfect sense. I can not fully empathize with my children's experience as I was not adopted, to that end this book is so very useful. I am glad that this author champions the needs of adoptees who are the most vulnerable in the decision making of others. I don't really care if my children see me as their 'real mum', what I want is that in life they can feel happy with who they are and proud of their first and second families. The book has helped me but I do wish it had a little more in the way of practical advice. Overall I do think prospective adopters should read this book and birth-mothers who are considering adoption too.
Sometimes, it feels that the author tries to explain all types of behaviors or feelings as adoption related, as this is one factor in a person's life, I am not sure it explains everything. I do think that many non-adoptees would also claim to similar feelings.
To other adoptive parents, I suggest you read this book as it is very insightful and it demonstrates that our children have suffered a momentous loss through adoption, we should all acknowledge their pain and support them as they work through these issues.


The Primal Wound, 18 Mar 2008
As a member of the adoption triangle I have found this book amazing for me. I have read another review that thinks differently but for me this book has worked and explained many deep issues. It was a 'light bulb' experience for me and has helped to explain many aspects of the complex adoption triangle. Yes, it was written some while back so does not cover the change in the UK law of birth parents rights to trace but the other issues are still relevant and are not just theories, this author has experienced these issues and researched others professionally. It will be sometime before the impact of the right to trace by birth parents emerge and are documented. In the meantime I highly recommend this book to the adoptee, the birth mother and the adoptive parent.

Please read this, but with caution, 09 Nov 2007
I give this one star in order to correct the misconception that this book speaks for everyone and is the final word on adoption and how adopted children do or should or must eventually feel. I feel this is a book that should be read, but with an extremely open mind and caution.

This book is over 16 years old and was written in and about a time when there was less knowledge than we are equiped with today about the feelings and experiences of the child awaiting adoption, and about how to healthily and properly prepare adoptors and adoptees for their future lives, as well as how to help them learn about and live with their pasts. The entire adoptive 'world', if you will, has learned a lot and come a very long way, since the experiences of these children (mostly adopted and raised in the 60s, 70s and 80s) came to the fore. It is also an American book, steeped heavily in the mechanics of the adoptive processes in that country up to the late 1980s.

Firstly, the most damning thing about the book is that the author insists that adoptees who appear to be well-adjusted and living happy lives are probably really just in denial. The only honest adoptees, it purports, are those willing to recognise they are permanently and irrevocably primally wounded. All others that seem to be living fulfilling lives have just not yet admitted this.

This is all based on one psychologist's theory -- that even a one day old child ripped from or cast off by its biological mother must and always will have a primal wound that will never heal, can never be assuaged by future love and security, and will cast a pall over its entire life. This is not necessarily a theory shared by all theorists, cousellors, or adoptive children/adults themselves. It is one view that does manage to capture (often brilliantly) the experiences of some adoptees -- but not all. This book cannot be read as the be-all and end-all of understanding all adoptions, all adoptive circumstances, and all adopted children.

Also, the book focuses solely on the experiences, valid and extremely important to hear as they are, of those adopted children who felt their adoptive parents failed them. It is a hectoring lecture at adoptive parents, berating them for their 'necessary' lack of understanding and generic badness as parents, because they will never understand their children and will never do them the primal good. It is very, very negative and proposes that adoptive parents can never truly succeed no matter how hard they try, because they can never truly understand their child's primal wound. I believe the author (an adoptive mother herself) may be venting some of her own insecurities and generalising them onto us all. She purports that adoptive parents will never truly understand their children, and she speaks to why the children can never shake the primal sense of abandonment by their birth mother (the birth father's abandonment is not an issue for this author). It sadly seeks so hard to bash 'bad' adoptive parents that is can serve to dissuade people from adopting at all.

But, while this book's stories are supremely valid for many many people, it cannot honestly be said that all adopted children feel that their adoptive parents are ill-equiped alien beings who did them a severe wrong to think they could ever provide them with the love that they longed for only from their birth mother. There is an array of experiences in adoption that are not supported by this book.

I do believe that this book speaks to a good number of children who have been adopted out of very trying circumstances and it is *supremely* important that they be heard and understood. For them, this book seems to speak volumes that *need* to be heard. But it cannot and must not be held to speak for every adopted child's experience. Nor can it be read by potential adoptive parents as a map of what is to come if they 'dare' to adopt a child.

This book often makes it seem as if choosing to adopt a child is choosing to cause them lifelong harm. If all prospective parents read this and believed they would almost certainly fail as parents and be resented by their adopted children in the way the people in this book have.... then why would they wish to adopt at all? Surely, great lessons and insights can be learned from such a book without it claiming to speak for all adopted children and their experiences.

So, please do read it, but with caution and a mind to how it truly applies to your life and situation.

Just what I expected, 12 May 2004
This book just reflected my own experiences with my adopted children. It struck a chord many times with my children too.

not what I expected, 27 Nov 2003
this started ok, but only deals with babies that were given up at birth and not from any other perspective, disappointing.

complicated, 18 Oct 2008
Despite desperately wanting to 'understand' attachment and attachment disorder due to being a foster carer for a youn