Nurturing a special bond

A lot of young Indian couples are now open to the concept of adoption, according to Dr Kalyani Gopal, president Mid-America Psychological and Counseling Service, a trainer on foster care and adoption, who is in the City. 

Dr Kalyani will be conducting a two-day residential workshop on November 22 and 23 at Fireflies, off Kanakapura Road Bengaluru where she will focus on ‘Displacement Trauma’ in which she will describe the complex trauma caused by frequent disruptions of attachment bonds. 

“It takes a long time for parents to relate to their adopted child. The child has been literally displaced from its biological mother and takes time to adapt to its new surrounding,” she explains.  

During the workshop, Kalyani will focus on issues of attachment with regard to cutting edge state-of-the-art knowledge about brain-based emotional and behavioural dysregulation during adoption. 

“Despite best efforts to love your adoptee, the deep sense of emptiness and loneliness that pervades the emotional and cognitive lives of our adoptees needs to be addressed in ways that your adopted child responds to your loving and nurturing,” feels Dr Kalyani. 

She will share anecdotes of emotional responses and diagnoses that are specific to adopted children and misdiagnoses and the dangers of wrongful diagnoses will be discussed.