Dr Richard Hogan - “The birth mothers who’ve come to my clinic have stayed in my soul”
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What emotional impact does historical adoption have on birth mothers?
Psychotherapist, Dr. Richard Hogan. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Brendan. And if this wasn't enough of an emotional rollercoaster so far, we're going to talk today about this is something you really want to talk about. Adoption. Why is this important to you?
Absolutely, Brendan. And thank you for having this segment because I receive so many letters into my clinic around this story. And I meet so many women in particular in their 40s and 50s and 60s. And older, to be honest, who come into the clinic and after the second or third session, adoption is present in what's underlining their feelings or their disrupted, say, psychology. And so I meet it in like nearly every facet of my working world here. And I don't think we talk about it enough as a society. Yeah. You know, and I think it's a very important, it's a heavy conversation, no doubt, but I think it's a very important one to talk about the legacies that has happened in this country and, you know, for people who have now still living those legacies.
Yeah, because I suppose most adopted people in Ireland are probably in their 40s or older. 40s, 50s, 60s. adoptions have impacted them and then other people, their families and everything right to the present day. So look, will we maybe, there's a lot of perspectives to this, right? So we'll look at a few different perspectives. So first off, you have the birth models, right? They got pregnant, they either chose adoption, more than likely, more felt forced into adoption. So what were they potentially going through at the time when they were pregnant?
Yeah, it's an incredible... Yeah, when I think about that, I actually always get a bit emotional because I made it so much in my clinic and I wasn't adopted myself. And this is just the stories that I have met in my life, right? Historically speaking, Women often signed care papers, Brendan, that they thought they were handing over temporary care and the child was never seen again. These are some of the things that have happened in our state. And they were told that it was selfishness to keep the baby. They were told that they were unable to keep the baby and that it would be a great shame. And we talked last time about shame. Shame is the architecture of so much of the profound suffering that went off into people's lives here, right?
And so they were told that there would be great shame on the family and or whatever I'm thinking of so many they'd already had nine ten months of shame of shame and worry and fear fear and then the secrecy right and so many of these girls and I father three girls I get emotional I think about it were who experienced this stuff right went off into their lives with a secret some of them didn't ever express never said what had happened to them never told anybody that the baby was taken for them never ever never ever I've worked with this in my clinic
So you're the first person they're telling you.
I'm the first, literally, and I'm sitting there in the clinic. I'm the first person that they've ever uttered those words to that I had a child. And many people, and often in the story, it's kind of girls from the country who come up to Dublin. This is the story. There's a couple of these stories in my head who come up to the story, come up to Dublin when they were teenagers, you know, out of maybe a difficult family and all the rest of it. Met someone on the night out, knew very little about protection and contraception and their period and all that kind of stuff. Didn't know much about that and was pregnant quite soon after that encounter and didn't know what the hell to do with themselves. And so there was all of that kind of all of that really complex kind of stuff.
And then the child was forced from them. Yeah. Right. In a lot of stories that I worked with, the child was taken for them. They were almost hoodwinked out of their baby. They were told in an Ireland of the 70s and 80s and 90s that, you know, you couldn't raise this child. You couldn't be, if you're going to do the right thing here, you're going to do what's right for this baby.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What emotional impact does historical adoption have on birth mothers?
0:00–4:23
2
How do societal attitudes towards adoption affect individuals involved?
4:23–7:08
3
What psychological challenges do adoptive parents face?
7:08–10:36
4
How does the experience of adopted children differ from their biological peers?
10:36–14:08
5
What role does sensory imprinting play in a child's early development?
14:08–19:30
6
How have changes in adoption laws impacted birth parents and adoptees?
19:30–23:31
7
What are the potential emotional outcomes of tracing birth parents?
23:31–27:13
8
How can families navigate conversations about adoption with children?
27:13–28:15