The Adoptee's Journey

Every adoption is rooted in loss. Adoption is often framed by happy narratives, but the reality is that many adoptees struggle with unaddressed trauma and issues of identity and belonging. Adoptees often spend the majority of their youth without the language to explore the grief related to adoption or the permission to legitimize their conflicting emotions. Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee's journey, narrating his own and other adoptees' stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with unintended negative impacts on adoptees' faith. Small's own tumultuous search for and reunion with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.

Cameron Lee Small, MS, LPCC, is a licensed clinical counselor, transracial adoptee, and mental health advocate based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born in Korea and relinquished into foster care at age three. He was then adopted in 1984 to a family in the United States. His private practice, Therapy Redeemed, specializes in the mental health needs of adoptees and their families wherever they may be in their own adoption journey. His work has been featured in Christianity Today, the National Council for Adoption, and the Center for Adoption Support and Education.