Adoption can shape a life in ways that are not always visible.
Adoption-competent therapy for adopted adults
What is adoption-competent therapy?
Adoption-competent therapy recognizes that adoption is not a single event or a simple family structure. It can shape identity, attachment, grief, loyalty, culture, race, records, reunion, secrecy, belonging, and the stories people are allowed — or not allowed — to tell about themselves.
As a transracial Latina adopted person, artist, LMFT, and Board Certified Art Therapist, I bring both lived experience and clinical training to this work. My story is not your story, and I will not assume that adoption means the same thing for every adoptee. But I do understand that adoption can involve layers of absence, adaptation, longing, loyalty, anger, gratitude pressure, cultural displacement, and questions that may not have clean answers.
You do not need to have a complete adoption story to begin.
adoption, identity, grief, and belonging
There may be more to make room for.
For some adoptees, adoption is connected to trauma. For others, the word “trauma” does not quite fit, or does not tell the whole story. You may be carrying grief, confusion, numbness, anger, loyalty, curiosity, relief, shame, gratitude, or a sense that parts of your life were decided before you had language or choice.
Adoption can create a life lived between many kinds of truth: legal truth and emotional truth, adoptive family and biological family, known history and missing records, gratitude and grief, belonging and unbelonging, the story others tell and the one your body may still be trying to understand.
In therapy, we can move at a pace your system can tolerate. We may talk, make images, write, notice body sensations, work with records or family narratives, explore relationships, or sit with what is still unknown. The goal is not to force resolution or turn your life into one coherent story. The goal is to help you relate to your experience with more clarity, capacity, and choice.
You do not have to be grateful, angry, searching, reunited, certain, or “over it” to begin. Adoption-competent therapy makes room for complexity without requiring you to perform the right adoptee narrative.
Adoption-competent therapy may support you in exploring…
Belonging, unbelonging, and feeling “in between”
Grief, anger, loyalty, gratitude pressure, or emotional numbness
Identity questions that shift across adulthood, reunion, parenting, loss, or life transitions
Attachment, intimacy, boundaries, and the fear of needing too much or asking too little
Patterns that may have protected you before but no longer fit the life you are trying to live
Why art therapy can be useful for adoptees
Some adoption experiences begin before memory, language, or choice. Others live in documents, photographs, family stories, missing information, body sensations, or questions that return at different stages of life. Art therapy can give these experiences a form we can look at together without requiring everything to be explained in words first.
Through art therapy, we might:
Notice sensations, images, metaphors, or fragments that are difficult to explain directly
Give shape to grief, anger, longing, loyalty, uncertainty, or contradiction
Work with records, timelines, family narratives, photographs, maps, symbols, or missing pieces
Approach painful material indirectly, with enough structure and containment to stay connected
Explore culture, race, language, belonging, and inheritance without forcing certainty or performance
My art therapy training and art practice help me listen for what shows up in image, material, silence, repetition, absence, and the body. Art therapy does not require you to know the whole story. It can help us stay with what is partial, contradictory, or still forming.
Race, culture, and adoption
Transracial and transcultural adoption can add layers that are often minimized or misunderstood: race, language, culture, racism, appearance, access, family narratives, and the experience of being read by the world in ways your adoptive family may not share or fully understand.
As a transracial Latine adopted person, I know that cultural identity is not always something you can simply “reclaim.” Sometimes access was interrupted. Sometimes language, family history, records, or community connection are partial. Therapy can make room for what was lost, what was adapted, what was protected, and what may still be possible now.
This work may include grief, anger, curiosity, tenderness, ambivalence, or the fatigue of being asked to explain yourself. It may also include building a relationship to culture that is real enough to support you, even when it is incomplete, delayed, or still changing.
Cultural identity work may include…
Cultural displacement, disconnection, or delayed access
Racial and ethnic identity formation across different stages of life
The impact of racism, colorism, microaggressions, and being misread
Ways of connecting with heritage that feel grounded rather than performative
Biological-family relationships across language, culture, class, geography, and expectation
Grief for what was interrupted, alongside attention to what remains, grows, or becomes possible
Adult Adoptee ONLY
Art-based Healing Groups
Connect with a community of understanding through my specially designed Adult Adoptee Only Art-Based Healing Groups
These intimate group experiences provide a unique opportunity to explore adoption themes through creative expression alongside others who understand. Each group offers:
A safe, supportive space exclusively for adult adoptees
Creative approaches to processing adoption experiences
Community connection that reduces isolation
Art-making that requires no prior artistic experience
Therapeutic guidance from a fellow adoptee
Frequently asked questions about adoption-competent art therapy
FAQs
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Adoption-related trauma encompasses the emotional and psychological challenges stemming from the separation from their biological families, loss of your original identity, and the complex journey of forming new attachments.
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Yes! Art therapy is a holistic form of mental health support that utilizes the creative process of making art to promote healing, personal growth, and well-being. Facilitated by a trained art therapist who guides you in exploring your emotions, thoughts, and experiences through art, ultimately fostering self-expression, self-discovery, and positive change. Sign up to learn more about upcoming workshops: https://bit.ly/artbasedhealing
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Yes, you can! Healing is a personal journey and looks different for everyone. I will work with you to help you discover your journey to improved well-being.
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The best way to learn about the next group or workshop series is by subscribing to my adoptee mailing list. Other ways are to follow me on social media: @arttherapywithnicole.