Family Psychotherapy in the Context of Adoption: Parental Suppression of Adopted Children’s Epistemophilic Drive in the Pursuit of Their Origins

Abstract

Based on a psychotherapeutic clinical case study with an adoptive family, we sought to analyze the difficulties of the parental couple in the function of supporting the process of children’s curiosity about their origins, as well as considering the effects on family ties when the epistemophilic drive is suppressed. Such drive refers to the desire to know about one’s origins and also to one’s inquiries about their own history and questions about their surroundings and oneself. This eagerness for knowledge may arouse parental anxiety when it uncovers conflicting enigmas about their own origins. For data analysis, descriptive reports of each family psychotherapy session prepared by the co-therapists were used. The vast narrative material, totaling 51 reports, contained the sequence of consultations describing the main issues discussed in the session. During the therapeutic process analyzed, we observed that one of the factors that made it difficult for the adoptive parents to establish conversations about the history of the adoption involved conflicts related to their own family history. Thus, family psychotherapy made it possible to identify that the suppression of the epistemophilic drive was a process intertwined with the family psychic transmission.