It's Complicated: Adult Adoptees’ Relationship Quality and Contact Frequency in Estrangement

Abstract

Narratives from adult adopted individuals highlight their complex relationships with their adoptive families. The range of these relationships, including cutoffs and estrangement, has yet to be explored psychologically. Therefore, we set out to understand how these complicated relationships relate to psychological adjustment and communication. Adult adoptees (n = 205), including an oversampling of those who self-reported as having poor relationships with their adoptive families, completed a survey on the quality of their relationships with their adoptive families, the frequency of contact with their adoptive parents, and their mental health. We found that (a) those who had more frequent contact with their adoptive parents reported a more positive relationship and (b) those who had a more positive relationship with their adoptive parents reported lower levels of anxiety and depression. Although previous research with non-adopted populations suggests some benefits to estrangement, dynamics within adoptive families may differ in ways not yet explored.