입양가정의 성공과 좌절의 의미

Implications of the Success and Frustrations of Adoptive Families:Emphasis on Adoption Counseling Experiences of Adoption Workers in Korea

This study aims to understand the implications of the success and frustrations by adoptive families through the observations and experiences of domestic adoption case workers in Korea. These adoption workers mediate between the adopted child, biological parents, and adoptive parents, and are in charge of various tasks and counseling cases through the adoption process until completion. The success and frustrations of adoption families were observed through in-depth interviews by adoption workers with more than three years of experience in case work or adoption counseling. These domestic adoption workers divided the results into the following three categories: 1) success for adopted children was measured based on health, receiving of love, preference for domestic adoption, and receiving permanent family boundaries; success for adoptive parents was measured by the realization of their dreams, “bungeoppang” family, happiness, hospitality, and with strong bond and possessing a “real parent” identity. Adoption workers also considered cases with a smoother administrative process to be more successful. 2) Frustration among adoptive families is categorized by between the adopted child and adoptive parents. For the child, maladjustment, new health problems, and adoption as a lifelong process was observed as factors for frustration. For adoptive parents, lack of parental efficacy, martial conflict, and the incoherent attitude of adoptive parents were seen to be factors. 3) The frustrations experienced by adoption workers were observed based on the following categories: self-identity, psychological, behavioral, and cognitive areas. It is expected that the results of this study will serve as a foundation to help domestic adoption workers in reducing psychological pressure and providing quality services to adoptive families.