THE 56th ANNUAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE IS NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION. SIGN UP NOW!
THE 56th ANNUAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE IS NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION. SIGN UP NOW!
ACE Foundation Programs
Psychotherapists have inherited several flawed assumptions from the adoption culture, often resulting in flawed treatment of adopted patients, specifically adolescents and young adults. This begins with the notions that adopted children are little or no different from non-adopted children, and that there should not be any developmental complexities beyond their initial “adjustment” to the adoptive family. Thus, therapists are inclined to treat adopted patients no differently from all other patients. As an additional contributing factor, the foundation laid in the twentieth century of early childhood development is also flawed because it was based only on children who were not adopted. Similarly, major theoreticians like Margaret Mahler and Erik Erikson based their ideas on non-adopted children, omitting the many differences in the adopted individual’s alternate development throughout the lifespan, starting from the beginning. The complexities in the adopted child’s earliest experiences and in their neurobiological development reveal that for the large majority of the adopted population, the first developmental stage is not Basic Trust.
Various treatment modalities are used in treating adopted patients but due to the lack of clinical training in this area, presently they are not likely to be informed by the Psychology of Being Adopted. Thus, therapists typically take a formulaic approach in assuming that “trauma and attachment” are the primary issues to address, and they use treatment methods developed for older children whose circumstances differ from those of young children destined for adoption. There are degrees to which trauma and attachment may or may not apply, requiring careful assessment in each case. However, it needs to be borne in mind that there are significant sequelae in adolescence and young adulthood. The first time that residual difficulties may even become evident is in adolescence. Further, there are other, usually greater, developmental challenges at this later time that may be influenced and intensified by the client’s experiences in earliest childhood. This requires an understanding of preverbal attachment trauma. This presentation reviews the primary systemic and clinical themes, along with examples of common errors in psychotherapy, about which adopted patients frequently complain. Because of the clinical complexities, their treatment should be considered an advanced clinical specialty requiring advanced training.
*NYSSCSW Discount applies to NYSSCSW current members only.
**Student Discount only applies to full time students currently enrolled in social work and MHP master level programs.
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Live Online via Zoom
The Advanced Clinical Education (ACE) Foundation of the NYS Society for Clinical Social Work, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0028; licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0045; licensed psychoanalysts #P-0017; licensed psychologists #PSY-0121; licensed social workers #SW-0056; and licensed creative art therapists #CAT-0120.
Out-of-state providers are welcome to request a certificate upon completion of the presentation evaluation but must check with their own state licensing boards to inquire about whether or not the certificate is recognized as transferrable for CEs in their state’s jurisdiction.
By the end of this continuing education activity, participants will be able to:
1. Describe modifications needed in the initial assessment of an adopted client;
2. Identify adoption-specific complexities in the “developmental tasks” of adopted adolescents and young adults;
3. Identify some of the clinical themes in the treatment of adopted adolescents and young adults that would not apply in the same way in treatment of their non-adopted peers;
4. Describe the contribution of neuroscience to the Psychology of Being Adopted;
5. Recognize the significance and advantages of working from the combination of cognitive and psychodynamic perspectives.
Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, licensed psychoanalysts, nurse practitioners and family and marriage/couple therapists, mental health counselors and licensed creative art therapists.
This seminar is appropriate for clinicians with all levels of experience.
Doris Bertocci, LCSW is in private practice in Westchester and presently also offers online, interstate, interactive training seminars in the treatment of adopted patients. She had experience treating birthmothers prior to establishing her long career in college mental health at Columbia University. Here a number of graduate students she treated were adopted and, although they presented with common student concerns, in time their stories contained many references to their problematic adoptions. Ms. Bertocci has published on the internal meanings of the adopted person’s search for birth relatives, and is co-editor and author in the Handbook on the Clinical Treatment of Adopted Adolescents and Young Adults (2024 – Routledge). This is an advanced clinical publication that challenges many common but inaccurate assumptions that therapists are observed to make about the development of adopted people into adulthood, and about the skills needed to treat them. These are addressed in detail in both the book and in Ms. Bertocci’s training seminars co-led with Linda Mayers, PhD. Ms. Bertocci developed the concepts of the adopted person’s alternate development, and of the Psychology of Being Adopted, neither of which are recognized by the three fields most closely associated with adoption: adoption itself, mental health, and early childhood development.
Linda Mayers, PhD, is past director of training, and training and supervising analyst of the Institute of the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society and was faculty and senior supervisor at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health; former adjunct clinical professor at City University, Teachers College – Columbia University, and Yeshiva University; former adjunct associate professor at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. She is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, an editorial reader for International Forum of Psychoanalysis and is a contributor to the IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. She has published in the areas of adoption, the psychology of art and psychoanalysis, tattoos, the history of mental illness, and infant–parent disturbances. She is a co- editor of the Handbook on the Clinical Treatment of Adopted Adolescents and Young Adults published by Routledge (2023). A licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City she has worked with adoptive families and adopted people of all ages and has an ongoing interest in the Psychology of Being adopted and the developmental complexities of adopted individuals throughout the lifespan.
Contact Hours will be awarded once the entire course is completed, as evidenced by signing in and out and completing a course evaluation. Certificates will be emailed approximately ten business days after the completion of the course.
ACE welcomes participants with diverse abilities. Please contact Kristin or Debbie at info.acefoundation@gmail.com, at time of registration, to request accessibility accommodations. Accommodation requests are considered in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA), Section 505 of the Rehabilitation ACT.
Cancellations made at least five days before the event will be refunded less a 10% cancellation fee. For cancellation please call 1-800-288-4279, or email us at info.acefoundation@gmail.com.
Should Inclement weather occur, we will be notifying all registrants via the email by which the registrant signed up. Please be sure to check your email before you leave for the course.
