The unexpected disclosure and treatment of a trauma as a result of adoption procedure: a clinical case

Luca (thirty six) and Chiara (thirty four) have been married for six years. After the first two years of marriage and having tried for a biological pregnancy, they underwent medical tests and discovered that Luca’s azoospermia was the cause of their infertility. They went to a governmental agency for family assistance as part of a standard path for the adoption of a child. There, among other activities they participated in: (a) a series of psychodynamic homogenous group meetings structured on three levels (past familial relations, current marital relations, and future possible relations) and (b)a series of individual and couple encounters. The dynamics of the case and the sequence of the events have been such that they let us see clearly that the request for the adoption of a child and the participation in the procedures of adoption could have been, for Chiara, a way to enter psychotherapy, to be contained, accepted, and recognized in the mind of the therapist so as to find in herself the way to disclose the past rape. We can think, however, that what Chiara gained in the therapy was that: a) she felt herself to be genuinely accepted, understood, contained, and appreciated b) she had become softer and also more capable of appreciating the nuances when reading her own and others’ mental states c) she starting to understand what mothering could or should be d) since a), b), and c) could be seen as indications of an increased reflective functioning one could also think that Chiara could have learned to be less controlling of herself and Luca. In the perspective of the concept of the couple-complex attachment (Fisher & Crandell, 2001) we should not under-estimate that, with the AAI, Luca turned out to be Ds3/Insecure and Chiara an F4b-E2, that is a person oscillating between a secure and a preoccupied attachment. The actual entry of a baby into their lives, after the adoption, may elicit an intense expression of the individual attachment systems of both the partners. Their complex attachment as a couple could be in a very delicate equilibrium. However, we cannot forget that Chiara’s treatment, in the mind of the therapist, ended prematurely, and by what he interpreted as an intentional act of will that has actually prevented the therapist from revisiting and adequately processing with her the traumatic event of her rape at the hands of her father’s brother-in-law. This is, perhaps, an inevitable limitation of short-term work as it arose in this context of an adoption procedure.