ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the gaps between the hopes and expectations of adoption and the often painful realities of the experience, and how we have helped families to bridge them. This is because adoption is a complex process, and the hopes and expectations of each person involved in it are invariably different. Though many remain unvoiced and some are only partially conscious, they are still difficult to relinquish. Most people know that adoption today is a particularly risky enterprise because it sets out to remedy earlier failures and experiences of loss and trauma by putting together children and adults who have only a nominal opportunity of choosing each other and no previous experience of living together. Their reactions to this experience can be explosive and leave everyone shaken, not least the social workers who carry heavy responsibility for the outcome.
