How do our experiences shape us—and where does possibility remain? Here we can explore identity, attachment, resilience and development through research in everyday language, with particular attention to adoption.
How I translate the research
Terms such as attachment rupture, trauma response, and developmental disruption can identify important patterns, but a label alone rarely helps someone understand their own life.
My work slows the concept down and makes the developmental process visible. Rather than simply saying that attachment was disrupted, I explain how relational development begins before birth, how the developing brain and body organize around connection and safety, how birth and early caregiving experiences shape those emerging systems, and how separation, inconsistency, loss, culture, and later relationships can influence what happens next.
I translate doctoral-level developmental psychology research into clear, relatable language so people can connect the science to real experiences without being reduced to a diagnosis or a single event. The goal is not to promise a simple fix. It is to offer research-grounded clarity, evidence-informed pathways, and a fuller understanding of how patterns formed, what continues to reinforce them, and where adaptation may still be possible.
Guided by dynamic systems theory, I view development as active rather than fixed. People, relationships, bodies, cultures, institutions, environments, and experiences continue interacting across time. Adversity matters, but it does not eliminate agency. With insight, support, changing conditions, and room for the whole person to be recognized, systems can reorganize and new possibilities can emerge.
I do more than name the pattern. I explain how it developed, what may be sustaining it, and where change remains possible.
1 piece.
Research brief4 min read
Three published studies follow adopted people beyond childhood. A plain-language summary of what each one measured, what it found, and what the numbers can and cannot tell us.
Published findings, summarized without embellishment and linked to their sources.
The study compared 6,065 international adoptees and 7,340 national adoptees with 1.27 million non-adopted people born between 1963 and 1973, adjusting for sex, age and socio-economic factors. National adoptees also had raised risks (2.8 and 2.5).
Fourteen years after adoption, pre-adoptive sexual abuse was associated with an increase of nearly a full unit (0.92) in behavior-problem scores, and neglect with about half a unit (0.48).
Source: Crea, Easton, Florio & Barth (2018). Child Abuse & Neglect. (opens in a new tab)
Drawing on a larger study of post-adoption services, the author suggests that abuse and neglect by adoptive family members “may be more common historically than has been hitherto acknowledged”.
Source: Harris (2014). Adoption & Fostering, 38(1), 50–60. (opens in a new tab)
This is not material I share for shock value. It is part of why I do this work: so adoptees do not have to carry these experiences alone, and so parents and professionals can understand survival responses within their developmental context.
If this subject is close to home and you are struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 in the US.
Shorter pieces and conversations, free and always growing.
You’ll receive honest reflections on adoption, attachment, trauma, identity, developmental psychology, research, writing, and the work I am building — no fluff and no constant sales pitch.
For research collaboration, citation questions and media requests, send a message.
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