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Identity Returned, Dignity Restored
Being told you only have months to live due to terminal lung cancer that has spread to other parts of your body is confronting. It focuses attention. Raises expectations. Opens questions. What’s important to do before my life passes on? For an adopted person finding them self in this challenging, irreversible position exposes unfinished business, […]
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Adoptees’ Experiences of Counselling
This article is a summary of my thesis on adoptees and counselling. The thesis was entitled ‘Adoptees’ Perceptions of Their Counselling Experiences and Suggestions for Counsellors’. It was submitted as part of the requirements of the Masters in Psychology Counselling at Monash University in January 2017. Adoptees’ Experiences of Counselling Counsellors are not usually provided […]
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In conversation with … Lynelle Long about the Colour of Time and living with adoption
I would like to begin with The Colour of Time, the recently published book which provides 28 intercountry and transracial adoptees the opportunity to reflect, as adults, on being adopted. You played a significant role in compiling this book, including contributing your own story. The book is a sequel to The Colour of Difference which was published […]
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Original Colours Matter
The Colour of Time provides twenty-eight intercountry and transracial adoptees an opportunity to reflect on their adoptive experience as adults. The Colour Palette The publication is a sequel to The Colour of Difference which was published in 2001. Of the 28 participants featured in The Colour of Time 13 contributed to the first publication and 15 are […]
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ADOPTED
Adoption as a social and legal construct is an uncomfortable wedge that splits and secures the tenuous identities of adopted people. Split from their original kin they are shifted to stranger families to become stuck on the threshold of never really being let in or truly left out. Familial doors are left ajar, leaving ongoing […]
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Lion Cub in Search of his Original Pride
The life story of Saroo Brierley is characterised by some extraordinary events since he was lost in India and subsequently adopted by an Australian couple in Tasmania. His memoir A Long Way Home became an international best seller when first published in 2012 and the recent release of Lion, the feature film adapted from his […]
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Adoption In Crisis Or Time To Accept Other Options First
We are led to believe that adoption in Australia is in crisis. Nationally, adoption rates are at an all time low, the process to finalise an adoption allegedly takes too long, slowed by red tape and driven by an anti-adoption culture and lack of resources. Simply, the adoption system is broken. Adoption, it is said, […]
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My Invisible Mother – Short Film
Pascal, your short film My Invisible Mother combines animation and interview to give a glimpse of the long term impacts of adoption. The film has won a number of awards this year including the Best Documentary Award at the recent Canberra Short Film Festival. In just over three minutes you introduce the viewer to adopted […]
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In conversation with … Catherine Lynch … adoptee activist, mother, lawyer
Catherine I have been looking forward to our interview. Let’s get straight into it. Adopted people, after decades of invisibility and being relegated to the silent party in adoption, are finding their voice and speaking out about what it is like to live with the legacy of adoption and even to question the practice of […]
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Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
“The trouble with adoption is that you never know what you are going to get.” Adoption is a bit of a lottery and in the case of Jeanette Winterson she didn’t win the jackpot. This was evident early on when her adoptive mother often used to say to her, “The Devil led us to the […]