'Be a kid': the traumatic impact of repeated separations on children who are fostered and adopted

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the cumulative nature of the trauma of repeated separations for looked-after children in transitional placements within the care system. Given early experiences of deprivation and abuse and lack of containment both at external and internal levels, these are children who have found themselves alone and unable to process or to attach meaning to experience. Later experience can reactivate earlier catastrophic anxieties. The description of the three-and-a-half-year psychotherapy of a young child shows how he made use of that therapy to make some sense of his experiences of separation and to form attachments with his therapist and significant care workers. This child's experience in transitional placement is contrasted with that of a child who, in spite of horrific early trauma, benefited from continuity in his care and in his experience of being understood within his family. The importance of children in transitional placements being given therapeutic help as early as possible, in order to support them in negotiating separation and change on their way to permanent placement, is emphasized.

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