Adoption Trauma, Identity & Reunion | An Adopted Adult’s Experience | Clare Cochrane
About this episode
Clare Cochrane shares her experiences with adoption trauma, identity, and reunion as an adopted adult.
Adoption trauma, adoption identity, and adoption reunion are lifelong experiences for many adopted adults. In this episode of Adopt Perspective, Clare Cochrane shares her lived experience of adoption, reunion, and dual belonging. Clare was born in Perth in 1966 and adopted at just two weeks of age. She grew up knowing she was adopted and describes her experience as a “good adoption.” Yet, like many adopted adults, Clare has come to understand that good does not mean uncomplicated - and it does not mean without cost. Raised as the youngest of four children and the only adopted child in her family, Clare speaks about growing up feeling different, living across continents and cultures, and carrying both belonging and loss. As an adult, Clare experienced adoption reunion with her biological parents, who had married and raised other children...revealing the complex reality of biological connection without shared history, and shared history without biology. This conversation explores adoption trauma beyond simplified narratives, the shaping of adoption identity across the lifespan, and why reunion is a process rather than a moment. Clare reflects on guilt, divided loyalties, emotional…
More episodes of Adopt Perspective Adoption Podcast
- The Hidden Truths of Adoption - Bev Shipway
- When your adoption search ends with a no - Ben Straker
- Apology is a Moment. Justice is a Process with Jeannot Farmer
- Adoption Reunion in Australia: Felicity Lawson
- Adoption and Addiction with Paul Sunderland
- The Silent Struggle of Fathers in Adoption - Phil Kenward
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