When an adopted adult considers searching for the birthparents, or for information about them, this need is often mistaken as "just" a wish based on "curiosity"; or it is assumed to be motivated by negative feelings about the birthparents and the reason for "being given away," or by some dissatisfaction with the adoptive parents.  From all that has been learned about the psychology of the adult adoptee through many followup studies over the last few decades, in other countries as well as the United States, none of these assumptions in accurate.

The psychological experience of the adoptee who has had little or no information about the biological family is extremely complicated, in part because of the many fantasies and anxieties that inevitably fill the vacuum.  The 'inner emotional experience' of the adoptee is also difficult or impossible for a non-adoptee to empathize with because the issues are so profound.  These include body image and anxiety about how the body will develop and change over time (because there are no points of reference in the adoptive family). There is also likely to be concern about the possibility of genetically inherited diseases, especially since they will increasingly be a critical aspect of all medical and psychological care.  In short, if you have no way of knowing your family's medical or genetic history, 'anything is possible.'  And as long as 'anything is possible, there is likely to be some degree of uncertainty or anxiety at particular times and stages throughout the adopted adult's life.

Other issues include the meaning of loss and, for many adoptees, unconscious bereavement regarding the birth family; difficulty planning for the future, or sustaining relationships, because of the vacuum of their past, which may leave the adoptee 'floating' (rootless) and confused; and conflict and anxiety about how the search might impact the adoptive parents.  The latter is in fact usually based on anxiety that their (healthy) emotional bonds with the adoptive parents could be potentially threatened (i.e., fear of 'losing' the adoptive parents when they need them most).  Treatment can be an invaluable means of helping itegrte the many facets of the adoptee's identity.

Adopted adolescents often fantasize about the birthparents in direct and indirect ways, i.e., about whether the person they are dating could be a sibling, about whether their interests and talents could have "come from the birthparents," and about whether their own children may be affected by the unknowns in their family history (they will).  And often the hunger to see a clear physical resemblance in another person becomes stronger with age. If an adopted adolescent as a minor expresses an interest in finding the birthparents, the wish emanates from a profound sense of need that is difficult to describe or explain but has many meanings. There is no generalization, however, as to whether the young adolescent's expressed wish should be automatically taken at face value and acted upon because of the complexity of the psychological issues for that particular child at that particular time in her/his development.

For a fuller treatment of the meaning of the adoptee's search, refer to the articles cited in this website.