Why do people continually disregard medical science/studies?

I believe that much of the damage created is in the DENIAL surrounding adoption.

Denying that there is a difference. Denying our emotions. Denying our curiosity (to please our parents). Denying that separation at birth can cause emotional trauma (rather than dealing with that trauma). Or certainly denying that separating a 1 or 2 year old from their 1st mom & being placed with a "new" mommy & daddy is traumatic. Denying that all the trauma surrounding adoption does NOT come from the "birth mom" and/or her (alleged) life style. Denying what statistics show; that there is a higher incidence of adolescents in psychiatric facilities (proportionally).

In a book on childhood trauma, Alice Miller writes, "It is much more difficult for a child to overcome early traumatization if they are caused by their own parents." Often the most damaging aspect is the denial of a child's traumatic, scary, painful experiences by the adults in his or her life.

Children can and do survive traumatic, chaotic childhoods without severe psychological damage when the adults around them VALIDATE the chaos or trauma in their lives.

Alice Miller calls those adults "helping (or enlightened) witnesses." "Many have also been lucky enough to find "enlightened" and courageous witnesses, people who helped them to recognize the injustices they suffered, the significance the hurtful treatment had for them, and its influences on their whole life."

http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller/childhood...

Adoption itself is not "bad". Sometimes adoption is a better option for a child (vs. remaining in foster care or an orphanage). Sometime that's hard for BSE (baby scoop era) adoptees to see based on the reality & history of the BSE years.

Just as hard as it is for some AP's to accept that not all 1st moms/parents are the drug addicted, HIV+, irresponsible, unfit demonized versions used to justify adoption.

Even when adoption is a better option for the child, all the denial is just as damaging.

Great question!

Because no study is ever without a bias or an agenda when you get right down to it. Most of them anywasy.

However, God gifted us with common sense, and i use mine. So i firmly believe some of the studies are accurate or at least close. There are so many adoptees who DO have these problems that it would be stupid to disregard the studies and peoples own experiences. I've never attempted suicide, but i've known a few who have. Sadly, one succeeded. And he wasn't adopted.

i feel like I should answer this since I believe it is partly aimed at me (from one of my questions).

I take pretty much all scientific studies on human behavior with a grain of salt. Your skin cancer/sunscreen comparison is something TOTALLY different. Skin cancer is easy: you either have it, or you don't.

Suicidal tendencies, depression, anger, etc. are much harder to measure. How do you measure depression? How do you tell when one person is more depressed than another? Things like this are not so cut and dry.

Not only that, but the causes of these negative psychological effects can vary immensely. For skin cancer, for example, there are things in the world (such as UV rays) that we KNOW certainly cause skin cancer. How is it obvious that the adoption in particular is what is causing the depression, anger, etc. in these people? Is it not possible that issues with peers or jobs or other things could have caused this?

I'm not denying that there are adoptees out there that have negative experiences and may have negative effects from it. But there are people growing up with biological parents who have terrible experiences and also have very negative effects. Also the *probable* presence of a "primal wound" may be a cause of negative psychological effects in adoptees (but even this is not proven fact beyond a shadow of a doubt). It's just difficult to say (especially when it's so easy to skew the data to achieve the desired result).

sorry the answer was so long...I just thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

Those who continue to insist that overpopulation is a myth need to realize that most of the world's population is concentrated in relatively few habitable areas. The reason many areas of the world are relatively unpopulated is because they can't support large numbers of human beings. People can't live in large numbers in deserts, mountains, and ice caps. They need to be in areas where there are reliable sources of fresh water. In fact, some predict that in the next 100 years or so, water will replace oil as the resource nations will go to war over.

I answered the question on suicide with the same link to the American Academy of Pediatrics you referenced. The findings are a hard pill to swallow, but ignoring unbiased research is a dangerous thing to do.

How many of us know parents who have their heads in the sand where their child is concerned? Either they don't believe their child is capable of certain behaviors or they just don't want to see it. I'm like a hawk circling at a high altitude quietly keeping a sharp eye on what's going on.

Being an adoptive mother gives me more things to watch over, but I'd probably be like this if she was my biological child. Why? Because I haven't forgotten my younger days and I've been an unofficial safe house for troubled teens for years. They've helped open my eyes to the world my daughter is growing up in.

Blinders are frightening.

""These studies/reports are from highly respected journals, yet I see people (mostly NOT adoptees) who will say the findings are bogus.""

Because to do otherwise..would shake their beliefs/faiths and cause them not to just question the world around them...but their ownselves. Questioning oneself, is probably the hardest and most painful...if not the most scary.

Of course, this does not only happen in the World of Adoption..people will consider many things 'bogus' in many other areas of life...simply because they can and they will. Doesn't fit their 'ideas' of their own worlds, their own realities...

Take heart, LinnyG..many people in our adoption world actually do 'research' material..pros and cons of, and then 'measure' the research for averages. I am a 'science' person..and simply cannot fathom how any human being can deny evolution..but many do. I would assume the non-evolution people...500+ years ago..would have surely believed the world was flat and those that did not were Heretics!

People can say any research material is 'bogus', but the sorry part about that, is national and societal policy has many times been created on 'bogus' research material...to include adoption!

The thing with expert opinions is that they are just that opinions. A lot of times studies even contradict each other.

Every person experiences life differently. For some people being adopted devestates them. For some people they experienced more abuse with an adoptive family that they would have with their biological family.

However some people did have better lives because they were adopted.

I know this because I lived it. My biological mother had a lot of problems including drugs (not crack). She tried to parent my 2 sisters and they ended up getting raped (at ages 8 and 10) by our mother's drug dealer/boyfriend.

I did have a lot of emotional issues as a teenager steming from being adopted. I hated being lied to and I hated not knowing my mother. I cried for her every night. I am not denying that I was in pain.

However, I found my mother, and delt with the lying issue with my adopive parents and went on with my life. I am not an emotional wreck. I am not a murderer. I am not suicidal.

My sisters are still living with the trauma of the abuse they went thru due to my mother being so stoned she had no idea her 8 and 10 yr old daughters were being raped in the other room.

One sister will not talk about the abuse, but has had a drug problem for several years (tho she is now finally clean and working on rebuilding her life)

The other sister is having a lot of problems. She cuts herself due to the emotional pain. She takes drugs to dull the pain. At 18 she got an incurable STD from sleeping around because she figures that since she was abused that all she is good for is some man's sex toy. And she has attempted suicide twice that we know of. I suspect she has tried more than that and not been caught.

So from my personal experience, I, the child that was adopted, had it a lot better than the children she parented. Yes I had some issues in my teen years, but my sisters are having lifelong issues steming form our mothers inability to parent properly.

Granted this is MY experience. Others may have the exact opposite experience. That is why I don't have a lot of faith in "scientific studies"

Who signs up for these studies? Adoptees with issues in therapy? Adoptees going about daily lives? Or are adult adoptees chosen at random??

I really dislike being told that because I am adopted I am more likely to commit suicide or be a murderer or whatever.

Adoption isn't always the wrong choice. Sometimes it is the best choice.

btw: I do not condone rich couple talking scared, young pregnant girls out of their babies simply because the girl is young, scared and poor.

ETA :On the issue of suicide, I watch ALL my teens for suicidal tendancies because when I wa a teenager, I lost my best friend to suicide. I think teen suicide is a huge problem for all teens, not just adopted teens

I tend to look at all studies with a level of skepticism. Especially when it comes to subjective things, like feelings, emotions, etc. Depression cannot be checked on a blood test or an X-ray, for example. Diagnosis of mental illnesses has criteria to follow, but still, it remains largely subjective data, rather than objective data, that determines if the individual meets the criteria.

When I read these studies about adoptees and mental health issues, one of the first thing I look at, is whether or not the study differentiates between people adopted as infants and people who were adopted through foster care. As children are most often placed in foster care with TPR done, due to abuse and neglect, it stands to reason that the higher incidence of depression, suicidal feelings, PTSD (etc) could be related to the past abuse/neglect and would skew the statistics.

Another thing I check for was how the subjects were chosen for the study. If subjects are recruited from the internet, or from mental health support groups, it doesn't qualify as a random sample. If you choose all of your adoptee subjects to interview about depression at a support group for depressed adoptees, what do you expect?

And of course, I read the study to make sure that it says what the tagline says it does. You'd be surprised at how often that this isn't the case.

Most studies are a way of giving guidance. They are not true for everybody. There are too many variable factors. Studies do not study every conceivable factor. As for your adoption example, I have known many people who were on both sides of adoption. Sometimes, it came out good, sometimes not. You have to take this on a case by case basis, and not lump everything together. What about the negative psychological effects of growing up without any parents, biological or not, or growing up with abuse. You have to take these things into account.

Bottom line is these studies are a resource.

<<Do you do the same for other studies?>>

I'm an academic, so yes, I'm trained to apply critical thinking to all studies. I haven't read through all your links, so I'm not commenting on them specifically, but in general, I'm not really impressed by "Ooo it's a study," because I've seen the process from the other side, and universities and peer reviewers let some sketchy stuff slip through on a regular basis. Even in respected sources, I'm not going to just accept it because someone tells me to.

The studies I have read about adoptees and mental health problems have been mixed. There are some I feel are quite solid (in particular, one about depression.) There are some where I feel the conclusions are probably ultimately valid, but I have concerns about the specific methodology. And there are some I think are total bunk (like one particular study about adopted serial killers, where they don't say anything outright untrue, but the definition of "adoptee" used is so broad that a number of their "adopted" killers lived their entire childhoods with their biological mothers or fathers.)

Studies about adoption seem to have the same level of scholarship as other disciplines-- meaning good, but not spotless.

I apply critical thinking to anything I read, and I advise others to do the same, regardless of the topic or who is promoting the research.