Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma by Deborah D. Gray

Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma Reviews

• 
  Angela

  Insightful and very applicable text. I enjoyed reading the real life scenarios on how to interact with children who are victims of trauma.
• 
  Ebookwormy1

  Deborah M. Gray is a trauma counselor who shares her methods in this book targeted at therapists. These kind of books are a lot like parenting books. Each author shares the techniques that work *for them.* Their personality is a significant aspect of what works for them and replication of the expertise of a successful counselor or parent is unlikely. The best one can hope for is to find a few ideas or strategies that one can incorporate into their own counseling/ parenting.
  
  Reading this book was more of a general exposure to the issues and concerns of children who have experienced trauma and neglect, as well as the characteristics of families in which these children are successful.
  
  Things I learned:
  1) Ms. Gray progresses from the big picture to techniques to family resilience skills. She also suggests that some learners may want to read the book in reverse. In hindsight, I think I may have benefited from the alternate path.
  
  2) Establishing secure attachment is necessary before addressing trauma. Working through both these issues requires a slow and steady methodology that breaks the matter down into steps. These steps help the child to assimilate specific concepts/ memories/ grief/ self-control issues in a gradual manner to the point they are able to regulate their physical and emotional responses. Ms. Gray seems particularly adept at this process, but it is not something that is greatly articulated (probably because it comes naturally to her).
  
  3) Ms. Gray links mental health with learning the ability to self-regulate and emphasizes that successful parents need to be able to self-regulate in the face of their children's outbursts or shut downs. Every parent gets overwhelmed, and when they do, they need to have strategies for how to get back to a regulated state. Ms. Gray writes in a nurturing and moderated tone, and makes suggestions for how therapists can maintain this peaceful state.
  
  4) One of the things that bothered me is occasionally Ms Gray demonstrates a condescending or dismissive tone toward parents of the children she is attempting to help. This is, unfortunately, common among psychological professionals, and was a disappointment to me. She also criticizes other psychologists for failing to handle trauma and neglect appropriately. To me, these comments indicate this therapy is more of an art than a science and should be interpreted as such. While these lapses of negativity are not common in the 500+ page book, their departure from Ms Gray's otherwise moderate tone is noticeable.
  
  Overall, the book made a solid contribution to a general understanding of the issue. Ms Gray's gentle and nurturing tone was easy to read. However, I did feel it was a bit long, and often seemed to be heavy on abstracts and low on concrete methods. I think it was conceptually helpful, but I'm not sure it will be concretely memorable.
  
  For more on adoption, I recommend:
  The Connected Child, Purvis, 2007
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
  
  Parenting the Hurt Child, Keck & Kupecky, 2002
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
• 
  ratherastory

  A very informative book on how parents and clinicians alike can deal with the complexities of trauma, abuse, and neglect in adopted children. It's more theoretical than practical, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The author was perhaps a little too critical (bordering on condescending) of other therapists and caseworkers in an effort to demonstrate what *not* to do, which was off-putting. Nonetheless, this book is going on my "to buy" list, so that I may have it as a reference later.
• 
  Tara

  READ HARDER: Less than 100 reviews