I heard this report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9663000/9663199.stm on the Today programme the other day and I thought it was a brilliant idea. If you have access to and knowledge of the books it's also a great business idea. Have any of you been helped by a book at some time?
If I was naughty I was told I would be made a ward of court!
My adopted parents had their own child two and a half years after they adopted me and she has learning difficulties, not surprising for a first pregnancy at 40, and it was always a case of my dad and ma and mum and my sister. Unfortunately, dad died when I was only 13 and I had to live with "them" for many years after.
I can heartly recommend all the books, especially the Primal Wound. It explores things we adopted people never realised about ourselves.
It was always other people who said that |I should be thankful to have a home, but my sister would often say that I was not her sister, for which I was always grateful.
Hi Jane,
My lum is reeking very nicely thank-you, I've had to stock up on air freshener. I too am adopted but was never told I should be thankful to have a home, however when I was naughty my parents would pretend to phone the children's home and have me sent back, it genuinely frightened me.
Although the bibliotherapy only uses fiction, the book which helped me the most was The Primal Wound (understanding the adopted child) by Nancy Verrier.
This book showed me that even children who were adopted as babies were damaged. They had undergone a bereavement, and at that time adopted children were brought up to understand how lucky they were to have a home and they should be grateful. There was no attempt to try and realise that we were children with our own set of special needs.
I found that I could put myself into context for the first time and it gave me a much greater knowledge of my own self worth after years of being told how lucky I was.
I have just finished reading "A Scots Quair" the trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon,which portrays the life of Christine Guthrie,another survivor.
I found these books extremely uplifting, and they gave an insight into the hardships of both agricultural, industrial, political and family life in Fife starting over a hundred years ago.
I can heartily recommend them, although being a northener I was probably aware of at least some of the auld scots expressions.
Long may your lum reek!