121 Dr. Sue Green
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/121
Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 121, Dr. Sue Green. I'm your host, Haley Radke. I am honored to introduce you today to Dr. Sue Green, a psychologist from Australia, who was actively involved in the landmark Victorian Adoption Act of 1984.
Sue will share her personal story with us, and then we dig into what led her to become an adoptee advocate, who now teaches other therapists, and mental health professionals how to truly be adoptee-competent in working with our loss and trauma. We also touch on some interesting facts about adoption in Australia that will likely surprise you, as they did me.
We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are over on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to the podcast, Dr. Sue Green. Welcome, Sue.
Dr. Sue Green: Hi, Haley. Very excited to be with you over the oceans.
Haley Radke: Yes. We are so far apart and we’re on different days. It's very exciting that we are able to, you know, be awake at the same time. But I actually got a chance to meet you earlier this year, in Washington, D.C., and I've just re-listened to your presentation (which was wonderful).
And we're gonna get into a whole bunch of your expertise in the area of adoption. And why don't we start out with this, though? Could you share your story with us?
Dr. Sue Green: Yeah, certainly, Haley. I was born in 1957, which is quite some time ago now. And I always knew I was adopted. As a young child, I used to be read The Chosen Baby story by Valentina Wasson, which, you know, I was very disturbed to see was still in edition from, in 1986, with a new cover.
But that talks about a Mr. and Mrs. Brown who can't have children. And so they ring up Mrs. White to ask for a baby. I'm obviously Sue Green, so it was Mr. And Mrs. Green. And the book actually says, you know, "Mrs. White, we wish to find a baby who would like a mother and father, and who could be our very own."
And so, in this whole story, there's nothing about our mothers and fathers. And as a child, I used to love this book, but I remember saying to my parents, "Oh, was that before I was a piece of paper?," you know, events that occurred before I came into their family. And it was like I understood I was a transaction, or illegal contract.
And being in the era of closed adoption, adoption wasn't talked about. I felt very guilty or bad for asking any questions, so I tried to fit in as best as I could. You know, my parents were very loving. It's a good adoptive family. However, there were two differences to The Chosen Baby story. One is, my father told me rather than Mrs. White ringing up and, "We've got a baby for you," that they went along to the babies’ home and I smiled to them from my cot. And that I actually chose them, which is a different spin on it. And the second thing, is that I was what's called in the literature "the fertility charm," in that my parents had a homemade baby four years after me.
Haley Radke: Ok, I have not heard that one yet. Oh my gosh. Wow.
Dr. Sue Green: It's very known in IVF circles. And it's very sad. You know, after my father died, I found this little packet of photos that I'd never seen before and I'm holding a baby. I'm about three-and-a-half or four, and it's not my brother. And my mother had actually had another baby on pre-adoptive placement when she conceived, and she had needed to hand this baby back because she couldn't be pregnant and pre-adoptive.
And she'd never spoken to anyone about this. So, you know, in her old age, I was able to talk about that and she had enormous grief and loss. And it's still one of my tasks is to try and find that little baby, because I don't know what happened to him, but I have no recollection of holding him. Anyway, I'd probably say I had a pretty rocky adolescence; I was fairly non-compliant.
And I was in 1-F. We used to have 1-A, B, C, D at school. I was in 1-F for a while. Probably my saving grace (and my parents were probably mad), but I was absolutely horse mad. And I used to go to the auctions and buy unwanted horses that were very damaged, and work with them.
So I sort of did animal-assisted therapy before it was even invented. And somehow once I got to the end of high school, you know, there were very few people in our class. I actually passed, and then left home and went to uni. And all my life through uni, I worked in bars, and people would come up to me and say, "Now where are you from?"
Or they'd start talking to me in Italian, or "You just look my cousin, north Verona…" and so on. And I'd have to say, as all adoptees do, "I don't know. I'm adopted. I don't know. I'm adopted." So that led me to search. And the other thing that led me to search was, I read Lost and Found by Betty Jean Lifton, which was the book of the day.
And of course it's got “Adolescent Baggage,” “The Chosen Baby” story, “The Right to Know.” And that was a–it was like that book was written to me. And you know, something we say in the adoption movement, is there's been a professional silence and denial of adoption as an issue. And that the people that have spoken out about it (as you have talked about), talking the truth from the fairytale, are the people with the experience. And particularly people like Betty Jean Lifton and Nancy Verrier and Joe Soll, and we've got our own Nancy Robinson (who's a mother in Australia), talking about their own personal experiences with a, you know, a clinical bent.
So, those two things are really powerful to me. So, growing up, I knew two things. I knew my parents had told me that my parents were married, and that they lived in the country. So, you know how we fantasize as we are growing up. I used to think I was a part of a large, Italian, or family that grew vegetables, and they had a bad crop and they couldn't keep me. This was sort of my image, you know, my fantasy,
Haley Radke: Oh, that one bad crop, that'll really do you in.
Dr. Sue Green: And so, I knew I was placed in the Methodist Babies’ Home. So, during this time (and I can't remember–it would've been the late 70s, early 80s), I went to the Methodist Babies’ Home to get my non-identifying information. And it's a very big, large, Victorian building. And I was sitting there, and the social worker was in the desk opposite me, and she had my file there.
And I was the good adoptee, and I just sat there and she said, "Oh, excuse me, I just need to go and find something." And I didn't walk over and look at the paperwork, cuz she wasn't allowed to tell me the name at that time.
Haley Radke: So it was right there, but you didn't look.
Dr. Sue Green: No, no.
Haley Radke: Now, ok. Do you think she left to give you an opportunity, or she legitimately was just leaving?
Dr. Sue Green: I don't want to identify, but I think she left to give me an opportunity. It wasn't easy to tell me, but you know. The irony is when I found out my information. My mother knew– My adoptive mother knew my mother's first name, and my father knew my last name. Because this was pre-1960, when they actually had the information of the parents and the family when they signed the adoption.
But they–until I told them, they had never talked about that. So, that's a sideline. So I drove home (as you could be imagining), just, like, feeling so upset and angry with myself. That's really when I got involved in the advocate movement for change of legislation. And they're an amazing group of people in an organization called Jigsaw (at the time), who had been doing that for a long time.
And it's actually a woman, Pauline Toner (who was previously my local member here), who introduced that legislation in '84 for identifying information for adoptees. And it was a bipartisan approach, i.e., both sides of politics (like the Democrats and the Republicans) actually agreed on something.
Haley Radke: So is this, was this federal legislation, or was it state?
Dr. Sue Green: State. Our adoption is run and managed, and the information is state-based. So, we've got different legislations in all the different states. So, I'm talking about Victoria at this time, and mothers and fathers (we don't use the term “birth” or “first” mothers)... Mothers and fathers also advocated for that at the time, but they lost, you know, there was lots of media around.
They'd come and break up happy families. And there was also media around, you know–there has to be something wrong with you if you're looking, as an adoptee. And so that's why the counseling provision was in at that time.
Haley Radke: So that you had to go for counseling before you could search? Before they would give you any information?
Dr. Sue Green: Well, you got it that day, basically. Because you had your name down and people… You would go and see a social worker, and she'd just talk about, perhaps, why you are wanting to search and give some preparation (which in some ways, I think is a good thing). And then you would get your information, so it wasn't conditional.
And of course, there became a huge demand. And so they started doing just a group session, you know, about that. And then VANISH was funded to self-search, which has been happening for 30 years. So, that occurred. So, I wrote to my mother and father, who were still alive at that time. I got my records, and I discovered I had been the youngest of a very large group of siblings. And one of my brothers was actually with me at the time my mother gave me to the Methodist Babies’ Home. And I was actually there for three months. So I've actually had three names. My birth name was Marjorie, my name in the institution was Ivy, and then my adoptive parents called me Susan. And during that time, they had (in '57)--it was almost like an orphanage.
There probably would've been 20 or 30 children in that room. And they used to prop-feed babies, i.e., not touch them, because there was this notion of attachment. That, you know, to be able to attach to a new mother, you couldn't have had previous attachments. And you know, that's something I talk a lot about, is around the confusion between bonding and attachment.
That with your mother in utero, you are bonding. Attachment occurs then with the developing relationship post-birth. And lots of people say, you know, “It was men that invented attachment theory, because they hadn't experienced the bonding in utero.”
Haley Radke: Okay, that makes sense.
Dr. Sue Green: You know, we still sort of have this fallacy. You see these, you know, parents–adoptive, prospective commissioning couples, either a surrogate or an adoptive person. You know, the baby's born, and they wanted the baby to attach to the mother. Well, it doesn't work like that. Attachment is a slow process. Bonding is something that's occurred for nine months.
Anyway, that was the theory during that time. And so, I arranged to go and meet my parents and the brother that was there at the time I was lost to adoption. We don't use the term “given up,” or whatever we took. For parents, it's “they lost their child to adoption,” or for an adoptee, it was “separated from family, through adoption.”
So, you know, very careful about language we use, that's non-traumatizing. Anyway, I– My brother took me round and I met my mother, and my father (who was very ill at the time). Meeting my mother was an astonishing experience. We've got the same eyes, the same sort of ugliness. And she took me by the hand, and took me out to show her vegetables, and I was in my vegetable garden, and all this sort of thing, you know?
And I mean, I didn't talk for 24 hours after that event. I was just, in total… I was stunned, I suppose. And of course my mother said, "Oh yes, and there's another one, too." And so we have a lot of adoption in our large family.
Haley Radke: So that was— the story was true. They were married, because you were the youngest.
Dr. Sue Green: And my father was a farmer.
Haley Radke: Okay. And the vegetables were doing okay at the time of your meeting.
Dr. Sue Green: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We call that synchronicity, don't we?
And so then, one of my sisters got a dinner party together with… My siblings sort of live all over Australia. It's a bit like the States, you know (we're about the same size), and so not all of them were there. But I love Betty Jean Lifton's term "twice born," cuz that's how I felt. I felt like the little baby in the crib again and everyone going, "Oh, doesn't she look like so-and-so,” and “Oh you do this just like so-and-so." And we, as adoptees, never had that relational experience of being the baby and the… And the other thing was, they all sat there drinking wine and after the meal, they left their plate there and the table was in disarray…
I grew up in a family where it was temperance; we didn't drink. And the meals would be cleaned up and the breakfast set for morning, you know, the minute after. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
And so, I felt this enormous sense of coming home. Both sets of my parents are now dead, so I've sort of been 30 years now connecting with various my siblings. I think the struggle with it is, I really agree that you have this false self when you're growing up in an adoptive family, that you have to accommodate. And how do you know what is “you”? And then when you meet your siblings (and it doesn't happen for everyone), and your parents, you see how much commonality there is. And things that you were thought were fiercely independently yours, aren’t. So you know, that discovering who I am is still going on, and I really appreciate the relationships (particularly I have with some of my sisters, around that). Yeah, that's basically my story.
Haley Radke: So you were in your–were you like just early thirties, then, when you first connected with your family?
Dr. Sue Green: Yeah, I've got the legislation changed in '84. I then gave birth to a son who was disabled in '85, so that sort of put me on the back burner a little bit. And so I was around 31/32 when I reached out.
Haley Radke: And you were still in contact with some of your siblings, then, to this day?
Dr. Sue Green: Well, Facebook's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Haley Radke: Well, there you go.
Dr. Sue Green: Yeah. But you know the ones that live in Victoria, definitely. And I had a message from–I've got two sisters in another state, but I got a message just not full last from one of them. So yes, I am still in contact. I mean, the amazing thing is that.. My mother's quite old when she had me and some of my oldest–only one brother knew about my existence.
Some of them didn't even know about the other brother that was lost to adoption. You know, my sisters think it's amazing that they didn't know my mother was pregnant and cuz she, you know, she was living in the household. But I think we forget that in those days, you wore big smocks and you didn't proudly talk about the pregnancy.
And they were 14, 15, and probably off doing their own stuff when I was born. But you know, I've been fortunate in that I've been accepted, but you know, you can never get back all those years that you didn't live with people, despite the commonalities. Yes. Yes.
Haley Radke: Isn't that the truth? Now, you were mentioning (and you've hinted a couple of times), at this history you have with advocacy and, kind of, knowing the insider stuff. Why don't you switch and tell us about your professional career? And how did you come to be Dr. Sue Green and the expert that you are in this area?
Dr. Sue Green: I don’t know that I'm an expert, but, look… My first job was– my first job after I did master’s in psychology was running a small agency out of a shopfront. Now these days, we have lots of counseling services in shopfronts, but you know, literally in a shop, in a shopping center. And it was one of the first family support funded services, family counseling services in Victoria. And because I knew people in the adoption network, I started getting referred all these teenagers that were adopted, and some of them were in our boys' and girls' homes because they'd offended, or whatever. So, I used to just sit and say, you know, "Do you ever feel stolen? Do you ever feel angry? Do you ever think about your mother and father?"
And they'd sit there, and they'd go, "You mean my real mother and father?" And I said, "Yes. Does anyone talk to you about this? Are you confused?" And so I would just have very open discussions with these kids because I knew, as a teenager, I had held all this in and I had no one to talk to.
I mean, growing up, I think there was a boy up the road and he was an Indigenous child. And, of course, we've had the stolen generations with our Indigenous people, and I remember him at school being bullied and teased. You know, he’s the only dark-skinned kid, so I didn't want to identify or talk with him, even though I knew I was adopted.
But I knew no one else, all through my school years. And I mean, odds would be there would've been other adopted students there. But I just knew that– particularly in adolescence, you don't like talking to people about your inner feelings anyway, but this divided loyalty in adoption… So I would just talk to those kids and I mean, I worked at the children's court (which is for parents who, you know, drug taking or whatever), mediating for 19 years. And I would always ask the question, "Have you had an experience related to adoption?"
And I actually saw some of those kids I saw 20 years earlier, you know, during that time. So it's something I've always had sort of feelers for. And I've always asked the question, and that's what we encourage all practitioners to do: to ask the question.
Haley Radke: So, you fast forwarded, because you're already a psychologist and then you're getting these referrals for these– What drew you to the field of psychology? Do you know? Did you want to know more about yourself?
Dr. Sue Green: Look, I– We had no career counseling then. I think I wanted to be a wool classer at one point. You know, that's in the shearing sheds. I have no– I wanted to be a mounted policewoman, but I was too short. I have no idea what drew me to psychology. But I'll tell you something, Haley, we've had probably about 350 counselors come through our training. And I would say, one in five have an adoption experience, or they're married an adoptee, or their mother was, or you know, they're related to adoption in some way.
And I think it would be really interesting to research to know how many therapists go into the helping profession because they've had that experience. I do know that all my growing up, I was very sensitive to what was being said. I don't know. But yeah, I can't explain why I went into the profession. It wasn't because I want to work with adoption, or I want to do clinical work. It was just…
Haley Radke: That part just came to you later.
Dr. Sue Green: It was a drift. I mean, I did sociology as well, and I did the sociology of prisons and so on. And then, we were very lucky we had a program, one of the early master’s programs.
Haley Radke: Well, I wanna kind of switch gears, because you were, you know, talking about just your experience with the courts and working with all of these very troubled kids, and then you see them later as adults. And how did you start really working with adult adoptees and understanding there's like this huge hole in care for them? And then, in turn, training other therapists and psychologists to become not just adoption-competent, but like adoptee-competent?
Dr. Sue Green: Look, I think it was being a part of the adoption community for so long and knowing everybody's experiences, knowing their experiences of going to therapy themselves and having to educate the therapists. And you know, if you talk about psychology training (and it'd probably be the same in social work)--we didn't mention the word.
I don't think–I did six years and didn't mention the word adoption once and yet, you know, past adoption, Baby Scoop Era, there's plenty of us still around, all as walking adults who have needs, and yet it is unacknowledged. There's a professional silence about it, and I suppose that's something I've connected with.
And just knowing, you know, Victorian Adoption Network for Information Self-Help, which I was involved with–I wasn't on the first committee, but that was made up of adoptive parents, adoptees, and mothers, and we had some independence. It now has donor conceived and intercountry adoptees on it, but being involved in that community and even 30 years later, we still have so many unmet needs around funded counseling.
We still have people searching. We have the ripple effect. We have the children now searching. So you know, there's a– We know there's enormous need there, but it's not acknowledged publicly. Although, I'd have to say with the apologies, Senate inquiry… Just last month there was in The Women's Weekly (which is a very populist women's magazine in Australia), there was a story of a mother who lost a child to adoption, who was also an adoptee. I might have had it wrong, I just skim read it in the hairdressers’ the other day.
But you know, we've had a lot of media and my next training is going to be associated with… The National Archives of Australia have this traveling exhibition Without Consent, and it's about the whole forced adoption era and it's got adoptees, and mothers, and everyone's experiences, and photographs, and so on. And that's a traveling exhibition around Australia. So, slowly, we are having people acknowledge that if you say you're adopted, they don't just say, “Isn't that wonderful? Oh, I was reading something about that,” and there's some connections of deeper understanding.
But I'd have to say we've still got a long way to go, because in some states there's a real push to adopt children from out of home care. And my fundamental position is that, “Why is adoption different from long-term foster care, permanent care…?” It cancels and falsifies the birth certificate. And, you know, it suppresses the truth to support a fiction, as was said at the conference. And whether you are adopted from care, intercountry, donor-conceived, understand there's lots of embryos now that might be adopted: the birth certificate is falsified.
And so one of our issues is about having integrated birth certificates, so everybody's relationship to the child is on the birth certificate. So, I'm not sure how I got onto this tangent now. But the understanding of adoption– the basic identity information is a lie, and it continues to be a lie in modern adoption.
Haley Radke: Well, I would– you answered a question that I had for you without even me asking because… So I live in Canada, and this year they had a Senate inquiry and there was a recommendation made to give an apology for the post-war adoption era, and nothing really came of that. The–I don't know, it's sort of on pause. Yeah.
So I'm not sure. I can't speak to it more than that, but… So you were just saying that, you know, Australia has had an apology, and we're gonna talk about that a bit more in recommended resources. And so you're seeing a bit of a shift. But, interestingly, I mean– Can you talk about the status of adoption in Australia right now? Because it doesn't happen much. Am I correct in saying that?
Dr. Sue Green: Yeah, I gave my stats in the presentation at Washington. Now, across Australia in 2017/18, we had 330 adoptions. Now that includes stepparent adoption, intercountry adoption, adoption from care, and local adoptions (which we'd call our infant adoptions).
So if you're looking at infant adoptions, we had 32 that year. So there's seven states. So you divide that by that. Now, Australian population's about 25 million; America’s like 300 and so on. If you look at 1% of the population and our adoption rate, you– America (and I can't speak for Canada) is adopting at least, I think, 30 times that amount.
I think there are 16,000 local adoptions and overall about 78,000, if you include out of home care and everywhere else. So. Yeah, adoption… but we've still got an issue with saying, you know, they'll say, "Past adoption is in the past, cuz now we have open adoption." But the– And there's a push for that. And we have some very powerful lobby groups, including some of our film stars like Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, and so on, who argue there's these children that need a home. And we would still argue, open adoption actually doesn't make much difference when you are falsifying the birth certificate.
You're not allowing a child to live with their name. And that when they turn 18, if they choose to be adopted, that's something they can do. Knowing that we have probably more adoption dispensations, (i.e., people want to become unadopted through the court), as people choosing, but… And we've had the whole stolen generation, so we had an apology for the stolen generations that was our Indigenous children.
There was a policy of genocide and assimilation by removing babies, and placing them in white families.
Haley Radke: So, in Canada we had something similar, called the Sixties Scoop in Canada. And, I think something similar, again, happened in the U.S.
Dr. Sue Green: There was a Native American adoption project in 1957, which deliberately took Native American children, and placed them in white families.
So that is an intergenerational trauma effect in our Indigenous community. And there was an apology privately, post-adoption of policy for them. And one thing I noticed in the States–I was just quite shocked–is we always acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and respect elders past and present and emerging, in acknowledgement that we took people's land and we took their children. So we have that whole history of acknowledgement, as well as the acknowledgement of past forced adoptions. But I would still say that there's a very strong push for adoption in Australia, because it does get sometimes linked to the abortion, and it should be quite separate.
"There are all these children in care that need loving families." "We have infertility still, one in five." So there's a very powerful push around the adults’ rights to parent as opposed to the child's rights. And so that's still an argument, I think, that just has to be argued over, and over, and over again.
Haley Radke: That's interesting that there's like this swing back towards pushing for more adoption. Because would you say that the apology perhaps has given mothers in temporary crisis more resources, or more supports to parents, instead of losing their child to adoption? Or am I just sort of stretching that a little bit?
Dr. Sue Green: If we're talking about the modern day, I would still say that we have very strong moral judgments–if you're taking drugs, or homeless, or you know; in the old days it was having a child out of wedlock or whatever. And we don't provide support and grief counseling for those mothers, and fathers, and grandparents, and families, and siblings enough.
And my big concern around open adoption is unless you support that family, they're not gonna be able to have any ongoing contact, particularly when it's not in contact orders. At least in Victoria, we have contact orders. So I still think we have a very strong ideology about being very judgmental to people who, for whatever way, are not coping.
And we've gotta recognize that parents in our child welfare system often have had parents who were raised in institutions that were also homeless. It's an intergenerational issue, poverty, often. It's not something that is necessarily their fault. You know, we're born with inequalities. So, I actually ran a training day in another state, which the mothers from past adoption wanted to organize. And it was a very interesting day because the acknowledgement of the loss and trauma of parents, I still think has a long way to go, too. And the disenfranchised group. And, you know, so forth.
Haley Radke:Can you tell us more about that? So you do training for both professionals who are actually working in, you know, psychology or therapy of some kind, and also other people?
So can you give us a scope of who you are doing training with, and what sorts of things you're teaching?
Dr. Sue Green: Okay. So we run two days, and the first day is open to any professional working with people who might be homeless. So there might be a chaplain in jail. They might be working with the homeless, alcohol and drug services.
And so what we cover in those days is, "What is forced adoption?" Now, we would say that if in 1972, we had 10,000 adoptions, for example, (very similar in the USA)... If those people were supported by family, had access to abortion, child supporting parent payment, job opportunities, et cetera, they would not choose to adopt.
So, when we say we only have 32 across Australia now, we would say that, you know, at least 9,680 adoptions were forced, because they had no choice. Now, within that group, there are mothers who were tied to the bed, drugged, you know, some really awful things happened– falsified consent, all those sorts of things.
So we cover "What does forced adoption mean?" We then talk about the seven core issues of adoption. And we also add mattering and trust, and then we hear about the experiences from mothers, adoptees, fathers, and adoptive parents about what has been the impact of adoption on them. And then we talk a lot about the values and myths around adoption, and getting people to question their own values.
Then we talk a little bit about the role of support groups, because they're fundamental. I mean, there's nothing like sitting with your peers and connecting, and encouraging therapists, community workers to use that as an adjunct. And in fact, some of my training–I've actually had a mother with a therapist come, for the first day.
So, and we also talk about search and support in the legislation, because I have found that most people in the community, whether they're a counselor, or a housing worker, or whatever, don't know about the legislation and how to approach that. And what would you need to do to support someone through search and contact? So they're the sort of things we cover the first day.
Haley Radke: Ok, before you go to day two, I imagine you have people come to this who don't really know what they're getting into. And how wide do people's eyes get when they see those videos of adoptees sharing? Or just the idea that there's a trauma that occurs when a child is separated from a parent? What are those light bulb moments like?
Dr. Sue Green: Oh, look, it's really amazing because you start getting– We have, with face-to-face training, you might have five or six people round a table and one will be an adoptee, one will be someone that's working in adoption (maybe either in search and support or actually arranging adoptions), you'll have some child welfare professionals, you'll have some general therapists…
And what happens, is there's an exchange of information. And often the adoptee, or the mother, or whoever starts sharing their experience, too, because they've seen it on screen, and from the feedback we get is, "I never understood that it was so complex. I'm gonna look at this client in a different way now."
Haley Radke: You can't unsee it, right? Once you know, you know. Yep, yep.
Dr. Sue Green: That's right. And that's the light bulb we want.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Why don't you tell us about day two?
Dr. Sue Green: Oh, okay. So if you're a counselor, you need to come to day one as well as day two, to understand the context, and just get all that sharing with others.
On day two, we talk about theories of adoption. And so we talk about genetic and goodness-of-fit theories, social wealth theory, narrative coherence theory, trauma theory, attachment theory, stress and coping theories–all the theories that are around. And we get people to quite thoroughly look at trauma theory in relation to that.
And then, we talk about when an individual comes to you, "How do you determine what is adoption related and not adoption related, particularly when you're talking about adults who might be anything from 30 to 75?" And "I've had a huge amount of life experience. As well as with adoption." And how do those interplay and inform?
So we talk about the five Ps. You know, what are the presenting issues? And we very thoroughly talk about the difference between loss, and grief, and trauma, and how to assess that using the DSM-5. We talk about what precipitated what was now, "Why now?" "Is it the birth of a child? Is it you've just learnt you're adopted? Why are you coming to therapy now?"
We talk about the predisposing things. For example, "What do you know about your adoption? Was it open in the family? Closed in the family? Were you in an orphanage? Were you–how were you parented? How did you deal with the age you were told? What were you told? What were your fantasies?"
All that big picture that you need to know about a person. We talk about what are some of the perpetuating things that might be–feeling of shame, not having connection with anyone else with the experience, all those things. It might be a sudden outreach from a parent to you. Because in Victoria, parents can also get identifying information; it's not only adoptees.
Or DNA is a very common thing. And then, "What are all the protective factors for that person?," you know, if they've got supportive relationships, those sort of things. So we talk about the whole picture, and then we take some case examples and people have to sit down and discuss them. And, "How would they work with that person? What questions would they want to ask?" And you know, I've got now case feedback from a couple hundred people, just discussing this stuff. And then, we talk about search and contact, and someone's ready. "So what would you need to consider in relation to that? How would you equip and support a person?"
And then we also specifically, as I said, talk about late discovery adoptees (you know, you could do a whole day on that). In our Australian research, there's no definition of that. They use 12 in the Institute of Family Studies, but you know, we've had people, I think up to 80, discover they're adopted.
And what does that do to you when you've left that identity? And we also talk about genetic sexual attraction, which doesn't need to be sexual, per se. But you know, me not talking to my mother, was that overpowering sense of connection. Or we have a mother who talks about her son walking towards her that she hasn't met in 30 years in bike gear, and she's got pin pricks all over her body as he comes, because she just knows.
And you know that enormous– It doesn't happen for everybody, but people need to be equipped by the overwhelming domination of this event in your life, and giving that space. And I think that's something we also talk about, the level of awareness. You may (and I still see today), some people who are adopted and they have no awareness that….I think you'd be calling it still in the fog. There's no awareness that this might be related to whatever's happening in your life. And then you have emerging awareness, and then you have some people who are drowning in awareness, and adoption is everything. And then you have all the people that are in different stages of reconstructing, and integrating, and accepting loss.
And so it's very important to be aware of where people are at, also. So, you know, that's a really big complex picture to cover, but it gives people a taste, and it gets professionals talking about all this with one another
Haley Radke: Which–it's so necessary. I don't know how many times we've talked about this on the show already, but, you know, you mentioned this at the top… You can, you know, become a psychologist, and literally never have adoption addressed in any of your classes.
Dr. Sue Green: Yep. And one thing, you know, what are you going to go away with? Well, we want, on the referral form, a question: "Have you had an experience related to adoption?"
And now we need to do that with all the genetic donation stuff. We need to have that on our intake. You know, I went to the doctor's last week and the surgery has moved, and I had to fill in a new form. There was still nothing about adoption or, you know, genetic carriage on the intake form.
Now that is just crazy to me. And then how do you sensitively ask the question? You know? So just, "Can you tell me about your family?" You know, "Have there been significant losses in your life?" That you keep it very broad, because you never know what you might be unpacking, and where people are. And one pleasing thing is, we've had a whole lot of people from the aged care sector come to the day one training and VANISH has been also organizing separate seminars. You know, adoption’s been seen as a special group in aged care and as people go towards the end of their life stage and they're reflecting on life, that is a really important time of life. Because you know these issues could emerge at any time.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. Okay. Is there anything I didn't ask you about, Sue, that you really wanna make sure you tell us before we go on to our resources?
Dr. Sue Green: Oh, look, I'll just say your program's wonderful. Because what I still think we don't acknowledge is adopted children grow up to be adults, and we have our own needs that are totally unrecognized.
And you know, I went to the case training again, the National Training Initiative, and it's like you can work with these adoptive families and deal with their mental health issues. And I would say, “No, you can't, because we still have those throughout our life.” And it's actually the whole narrative and process of adoption that is the issue.
The falsification of the birth certificate, it's not allowing the authenticity of the person to grow, you know, from very young childhood, for having to fit in. All those sorts of things, really important to acknowledge. And so we just don't recognize all the needs that we have as adults: when we have our first child, and become grandparents, when we're dealing with relationships, we're dealing with families, the divided loyalty issues. We just do not acknowledge that. And so, you know, I'm really grateful that you publicized, so some audience might hear.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, so we are gonna do our recommended resources, and mine is something that Sue mentioned earlier on. You referred to it several times, VANISH, which is the Victorian Adoption Network for Information and Self-Help.
So that's a great acronym. I mean, whew!, you got all the letters in there. So, Sue is on the committee, which I'm assuming we might call that being on the board of directors (similar lingo). And if you go to their website, vanish.org.au, oh my word! There are so many resources linked there and you know, some are Australia specific, but there's so many that absolutely apply to adopted people around the world.
No matter what your situation, you can find something there. It's a treasure trove. So, if I'm ever looking for a resource in the future, like if I need, you know, something… (I'm stabbing my fingers.) If I need to come up with something for a recommended resource, cause I don't have anything, maybe I'll come here and look at your resource page.
Yeah, and if you're in Australia (especially in Victoria), make sure you go and check out how you can get involved, get connected, find out more about training through there. And the other thing that's linked on the resource page is your recommended resource. So why don't you go ahead and tell us about that, please?
Dr. Sue Green:Yes, I've recommended… I mean, every state government has made an apology, but I've recommended the YouTube clip of the National Apology, which was delivered by Julia Gillard, who was our first Australian Prime Minister, in March, 2013. So we've now had our sixth anniversary, and you will see people from around Australia in the large hall of Parliament House.
And there's a five minute version, and a 20 minute version. But what was so impressive is she met people, and she talked to them, and she really understood. And if I have time, I can just read out a sentence or two that applies to adoptees.
She said, "To each of you that were adopted or removed, who were led to believe your mother had rejected you, and who were denied the opportunity to grow up with your family and community of origin, and to connect with your culture. We say sorry. We apologize to the sons and daughters who grew up not knowing how much you were wanted and loved. We acknowledge that many of you still experience a constant struggle with identity, uncertainty, and loss. And feel a persistent tension between loyalty to one family and yearning from another."
So it was a very moving day.
Haley Radke: I may have cried just watching the video of that apology. I mean, really! Especially those lines that you read, they're so– It's so significant, right? Having your loss and grief acknowledged, amazingly, is somehow validating, and it's a part of our healing.
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and, oh my word!, you have got to get Dr. Green over to teach your therapist, your psychologist, your social workers about how to be adoptee and adoption-competent. Dr. Green, if people want to connect with you and figure out how to bring you over to North America, which is where most of our listeners are, or wherever, right?
You're a world traveler. You get around. Where can we connect with you to find out more about training?
Dr. Sue Green: Well, I would suggest that you contact VANISH via the website. And I have to say, I met some wonderful therapists who are also adoptees in North America that you've also had on your program. And it would be great to just partner up.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. That would be awesome.
Dr. Sue Green: Do some, you know, concurrent work. Yeah. So feel free to contact VANISH.
Haley Radke: So VANISH (the website), again, I'm just gonna repeat it, is vanish.org.au, and there's contact info there. Yeah, and let us know, please, if you have anything coming up, and we will certainly share it on the Facebook page.
You do have a training coming up in a couple weeks (when we're recording this in November). So I will post information about that in the show notes. And people can come and check that out if they're around, or if they want to have an Australian vacation. Thank you so, so much, Sue. It's just been a real honor. Thank you so much for your time today.
Dr. Sue Green: Oh, thank you, Haley. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Bye-bye.
Haley Radke: Oh, my word. I could have interviewed Sue for like five hours. I hope that we can have her back to address some more of this in depth. I mean, we could do… I was joking around with her before we started. I was like, "You could do like a 10-episode series with your level of expertise." So grateful for her time in sharing with us.
I want to say another big thank you to my monthly partners on Patreon. Thank you so much. You guys are literally helping the show to continue, and so I'm so grateful for your ongoing support. If you want to stand with these really amazing people and say, "Yes, I think Adoptees On is valuable, and I want it to continue,” go to adopteeson.com/partner, and you can find out more details there about your bonuses.
And it's been really special. I've gotten to know so many of these supporters as friends in the Facebook group, and some people have Skyped with me, and that's been really fun, too. So there's lots of fun bonuses over on Patreon. Adopteeson.com/partner has details for that. Another amazing way to support the podcast for $0, is just to share an episode with a friend that you know is also adopted.
Maybe there's a specific one that you know would really connect with them. Maybe you know an Australian adoptee, and they would really love to hear Sue's story and get connected with local adoptees in their area. So that is another awesome way to share Adoptees On–with other people just like us that need adoptee support.
Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
