Dr Jeanette (Jenny) Conrick is a social work clinician and academic who provides counselling through the VANISH Counselling Brokerage Program. Drawing on over 30 years’ experience in practice, research and education, Jenny has worked alongside many adopted people and mothers separated from their children. In this interview, she reflects on what she’s learned about the lifelong impacts of adoption – with a particular focus on adoptees, what practitioners need to know, and where hope and healing can be found.
Could you start by briefly introducing yourself and what you do?
My full name is Jeanette Conrick, but I’m often known as Jenny. I have a PhD in Social Work and currently work part time at the University of Melbourne, teaching final-year social work students and being involved in research projects. I also have a small private counselling practice. Many of my clients are referred from VANISH, but also from ARMS Victoria, the Justice Department’s Choices Program, the Adoption Redress Scheme, and through word of mouth.
I’ve been involved with VANISH and with adoption for a long time. My interest really goes right back to the start of my career.
What drew you to counselling and to working with adoption?
Adoption was part of life when I was growing up—it was a peak period in adoption in Australia and I was always curious about it.
As a young social worker in the 1970s, I saw first-hand the stigma around pregnancy outside marriage and how families often pressured women to relinquish their babies. I remember supporting a 17-year-old mother who wanted her baby to be adopted. We talked a lot about that, and on the very last day she was allowed to withdraw consent, she did. And that really spoke to me about the importance of supporting women during those early months, particularly if they were single parents or in difficulty, without the support of families.
Later, working at St Anthony’s in Melbourne, I saw the shift away from children being separated and placed in care towards supporting families to remain together. Those early years were very formative, but all throughout my career, I’ve met people who have been separated and I’ve seen the impact of it.
Over time I kept meeting women who were adopted and I realised their experiences around parenting and identity weren’t being written about. So I did a pilot study for my master’s – interviewing adoptees who had become mothers. The women were so generous and the insights I gained were enormous.
When we all came together to discuss my findings, the women told me it was the first time they’d ever spoken with other adoptees about motherhood. That really struck me, too—how few opportunities adopted people are given to make sense of how their early experiences might influence them across their life cycle.
Do you think the ongoing impacts of adoption are better understood among therapists today?
I think so many practitioners, no matter whether they’re psychologists, social workers, etc., will meet people with an adoption experience without knowing it. They may not even ask. I think it’s still the case.
In my work I met people and found out that some of them had been adopted. But I think all sorts of people in helping professions will meet adopted people and won’t know about it necessarily—and may not understand that whatever that person’s brought to that professional, that that has intertwined with an adoption experience.
I can only speak from my experience—I think there’s more awareness than there used to be, but I wouldn’t say it’s widespread or nuanced. Many clients tell me they’ve seen several counsellors over their lives and haven’t quite found what they’re hoping for.
Even in professional education, adoption still gets very little attention. In the social work master’s program I teach, it’s only mentioned when I bring it up myself, which I find very concerning. We talk about the intergenerational trauma of the Stolen Generations, but not about adoption—which is also about separation, identity, and loss.
So I talk about adoption and out-of-home care in my lectures, and I don’t just say that it’s all bad, but there is always the impact of the initial separation and the lifelong effects on a person’s sense of safety and belonging.
What do you think practitioners might still overlook?
I think many underestimate the impact of early trauma. The experience of trauma is often different for different groups in the adoption community, but for adopted people, we know that the anxiety of the mother can influence the baby in utero through epigenetics. Then there’s the actual separation, which is profound. And particularly for those adopted under earlier legislation, their adoptive parents weren’t educated about the special needs of adopted children – the assumption was that they could be raised as if born to the family. So adoptees have already experienced intense situations that many other children don’t experience at that age.
And those early experiences can have lifelong impacts. I’ve seen adopted clients from children through to adults in their 80s. Through my research one of the oldest relatives who welcomed a reunion was 89. All of these people at different points are renegotiating identity and changing meaning.
I don’t think people necessarily understand that biological family, for better or worse, whether it’s culturally imbued or part of just being human, has a huge significance for people. Even if an adopted person doesn’t think about that until they’re in their 50s, all of a sudden there’s a desire to understand a bit more and to understand where they fit.
Therapists also need to understand the therapeutic relationship itself is so important. It’s one of the biggest factors in working with people.
Some adopted people are very wary. Others engage very quickly and can have expectations that are unrealistic of the relationship that have to be handled very delicately and carefully. There’s often rupture in relationships, misunderstandings, feelings about being let down and not being seen properly.
And the practitioner needs to be able to negotiate that—that is a very important part of the therapeutic relationship. I think the clinician needs to be aware of the impact of their client’s losses on them and be able to hold those losses without projecting. So that means a lot of work on the part of the practitioner.
What are some of the common challenges you see for adopted people?
I think everyone I see has elevated levels of anxiety, which is understandable, and often depression too. I don’t think people really understand the impact of stress and trauma on neurological development of the infant and what that means for stress levels, anxiety, and depression as people go through life. For some, on top of mild-to-moderate anxiety and depression, there’s a fall into major mental health issues.
Many adoptees carry a deep fear of rejection, a sense of not being good enough, of always having to do the right thing—which then can lead some adopted people to not take risks or not to be who they are, which is linked to identity. So that can impact all relationships, as well as confidence in work and daily living.
Parenting is another big one. Some parents become intensely protective, almost hypervigilant about separation; others don’t allow themselves to bond at first because they fear loss.
There can also be physical expressions of stress—gut problems, chronic tension, sleep difficulties. And they go to doctors but just can’t seem to get to the bottom of it.
Finally, searching for or reuniting with birth family* can feed back into anxiety and not wanting to be rejected by either birth family or other people. And for some it’s a very sad outcome, very disappointing. For others, it’s okay and first and then it’s not okay. And often people need to renegotiate their relationship with their adoptive parents in the process—sometimes it causes stress and separation, and sometimes a closer bond.
All of this can be very challenging for people who’ve had an adoption experience, including people who would see their adoptions as being successful, and across local and intercountry adoption. So I think no matter whether people have had as good an adoption experience as they can – and I do see those people – they still have issues at various points that they need to touch base with and just sort through.
What therapeutic modalities do you recommend in working with adopted people?
I’ve spoken about stress, trauma, and neurobiology, and considering that, there has to be an openness to different modalities of working with people.
For some people, stress-related modalities are very important. Narrative work is often very important. CBT, I think has limited value for various people, but you’ve got to work that out with your client. I think some people absolutely find expression and healing through art or music.
And then I’m finding that EMDR, which has a neurobiological basis, is of assistance to some people. But I think there’s so much more to learn about how to use that modality, because the people I see have this very early trauma that is foundational to how they then see the whole world.
👉 What is EMDR?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy technique that aims to help you heal from trauma or other adverse life experiences. The method involves being guided to move your eyes in a specific way while you process emotionally disturbing memories, without needing to talk in detail about the painful events. Extensive research now supports EMDR as an effective treatment for trauma.
For adoptees reading this, is there anything you’d like to say about hope and healing?
Hope is always something I would claim. I don’t claim miracles, but there can always be some shifting along the line.
The past can’t be changed. And we know it has impacts, but it’s also created some of the strengths, insights and perspectives that people have. That’s no small thing. It sounds awful, but sometimes gems come from pain.
We can also learn to become aware of our patterns—the physiological, emotional, and behavioural reactions that can occur again and again. So learning to recognise: “Yep, this is a trigger for me. I feel my heart rate going up. I’m sweating. I’m feeling awful. Okay. However, I’m not in danger at the moment. This is something from the past. No one’s going to kill me or separate from me just now.” Some recognition and then some immediate strategies to just calm the nervous system and perhaps choose a slightly different path.
This is where EMDR can be helpful. The messages change. Perhaps there are little changes in behaviour where people might have been hooked into something at one point, but now they can say, “Whoops, that’s this again. I’ll step back.” So they can then choose a different way. And over time these small shifts can make a difference for people.
We try to come to terms with what is and mourn what hasn’t been, because some things can’t be won back. Even when you meet birth family and you click with them, there are years that can’t be won back. That’s a reality. And when they might talk about a holiday they had when they were 10 years old, and you feel those little pricks of “I wasn’t there. I’m different here” or “I could have had that. What if I had stayed with that family…” and knowing that’s a sadness, you can also say, “Well, okay, but look, I’m here now. And they’re all here.”
The losses are real. They have to be recognised. We don’t want to deny the loss, but we also want to balance it, by perhaps asking, What is working for you now? What is good? And what can be built upon? It can be hard to do, but I think it’s really important.
VANISH provides specialist support, search services and counselling for adults affected by adoption, family separation and donor conception. If you are an adoptee seeking counselling, or a practitioner wanting to understand more about adoption-related trauma, contact us to find out how we can help you.
*While the term ‘birth family’ is used here, VANISH acknowledges that there are sensitivities in adoption language and people in our community have different preferences.