Adoption is often described as a story of belonging. However, less often discussed are the layered experiences of identity, grief, gratitude, and loyalty that many adoptees carry quietly throughout their lives.
In this episode of The MindSpa Podcast, Tina Wilston sits down with Ludivine Blais, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), to explore adoption, identity development, and the experience commonly described as FOG — fear, obligation, and guilt.
As a transracial adoptee from China raised in a white French Canadian family, Ludivine reflects on the lifelong negotiation between love received and culture lost. Together, she and Tina explore identity dissonance, attachment patterns, cultural belonging, and the gradual process of healing.
Adoption and Identity: Love and Loss Existing Together
Adoption can hold both gratitude and grief at the same time.
For many adoptees, society’s narrative emphasizes rescue, opportunity, and privilege. While those elements may be real, they do not erase the complexity of early separation, cultural displacement, or unanswered questions about origin.
Ludivine describes the internal tension of celebrating an adoption story while also sensing a quiet, unspoken loss — loss of language, loss of cultural immersion, and loss of an alternate version of oneself that never had the chance to exist.
Although belonging and grief may seem contradictory, they often exist side by side. This experience is not abnormal. It is human.
In therapy, naming both realities becomes part of integration rather than betrayal. Over time, this process allows identity to feel more cohesive and less divided.
Understanding FOG: Fear, Obligation, and Guilt
Within adoption-focused therapy, FOG is an acronym used to describe an emotional pattern many adoptees experience.
It can include:
- Fear of harming adoptive parents by expressing difficult feelings
- Obligation to remain grateful
- Guilt for questioning the adoption narrative
When gratitude becomes the only acceptable emotion, more complex feelings may be pushed aside. As a result, internal conflict can deepen.
Stepping “out of the fog” does not mean rejecting one’s family or denying love. Rather, it allows space for nuance. In other words, it acknowledges that adoption can be both meaningful and painful at the same time.
Therapy can support clients in moving in and out of this fog gradually. Most importantly, it happens at a pace that feels emotionally manageable.
Therapy and Readiness: There Is No Single Path
Not every adoptee enters therapy wanting to examine adoption directly.
Instead, some come seeking support for work stress, relationship challenges, anxiety, or depression. However, adoption history may still influence attachment patterns, belonging, or self-concept beneath the surface.
For this reason, Ludivine emphasizes that the therapeutic approach must reflect readiness. In other words, the depth of exploration depends on what the client feels emotionally prepared to address.
For some clients, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and grief-focused work provide space to acknowledge loss without overwhelming the nervous system.
For others who are ready to explore deeper layers, therapy may examine:
- Ethical dimensions of international adoption
- Power dynamics within systems
- Cultural assimilation and identity erasure
- Anger and resentment toward systems rather than individuals
There is no correct depth. There is only what feels emotionally sustainable.
Attachment and Early Separation
Attachment theory reminds us that early caregiving relationships shape how we experience safety, trust, and belonging.
For adoptees, particularly those adopted after early infancy, several factors can influence attachment experiences. These may include:
- Age at adoption
- Quality of care in orphanages or foster settings
- Pre-adoption separation
- Cultural transitions
- The level of openness and transparency within the adoptive family
Even when adoption occurs early, infants lose familiar sensory cues such as heartbeat, smell, voice, and rhythm — signals that once formed their earliest attachment template.
Although these disruptions do not determine a person’s future, they can influence patterns of connection, anxiety, or self-worth later in life. As a result, attachment themes may surface in subtle ways over time.
Therapy offers space to explore these influences thoughtfully and without blame. Instead of assigning fault, the goal is understanding.
Cultural Identity and Belonging
For transracial adoptees, identity dissonance can add another layer of complexity.
Growing up in a family and environment where no one looks like you may create subtle questions of belonging. At the same time, efforts by adoptive parents to introduce cultural traditions — even with good intentions — may unintentionally highlight difference.
There is no perfect formula. On one hand, too little cultural connection may create resentment. On the other hand, too much emphasis may reinforce a sense of “otherness.”
The complexity is real, and it rarely has a simple solution.
Belonging is not achieved simply because parents say, “You belong.” Instead, it develops internally over time, through lived experience, integration, and emotional safety.
Grief Without Answers
One of the most difficult aspects of adoption work is living with the unknown.
These unknowns can include:
- Origins
- Motivations
- Biological history
- Alternate futures that never unfolded
Opening emotional “boxes” does not always lead to clarity. In many cases, it leads to more questions. As a result, grief work often involves accepting that some answers may never come.
Importantly, this grief is not ingratitude. Rather, it is acknowledgement of something real that was lost.
When Adoption Is Seen Through a Systemic Lens
International adoption exists within global systems shaped by politics, economics, and cultural hierarchies.
For this reason, Ludivine speaks candidly about the importance of awareness — for adoptees and adoptive parents alike. Adoption does not exist outside of a broader systemic context.
Importantly, this does not mean individual families acted with harm. Rather, it acknowledges that love can exist alongside participation in larger systems that deserve reflection.
Healing may include exploring this tension thoughtfully and without directing misplaced blame. In many cases, the work involves separating personal relationships from systemic realities.
For Adoptive Parents: Enter With Eyes Open
A final message shared in the episode is directed toward prospective adoptive parents.
Adoption requires more than love. In addition, it calls for:
- Cultural humility
- Ongoing education
- Openness to complexity
- Willingness to tolerate difficult emotions
- Recognition that a child may hold anger, grief, or questions
Importantly, these emotions are not signs of rejection. Rather, they are part of healthy development.
Love does not erase complexity. Instead, it creates space for it.
A Gradual Process of Healing
Adoption identity work is not linear. Clients may move in and out of FOG, feeling gratitude one day and grief the next. At times, they may feel ready to open difficult emotional “boxes,” while at other times that readiness may come years later. Both experiences are valid. Therapy offers space to explore identity safely and without pressure to resolve it quickly. Over time, healing unfolds gradually, integration happens in layers, and a sense of belonging can be reclaimed, even when it has felt fractured.
Listen to the Full Episode
🎧 S2 · Ep 3: Adoption, Identity, and Healing, Walking Out of the FOG
With Ludivine Blais, RP (Qualifying)
Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | Buzzsprout
Guest
Ludivine Blais, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
CRPO Registration #19585
MindSpa Mental Health Centre – Gloucester & Online
Please note: Ludivine Blais is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and practices under clinical supervision in accordance with CRPO standards.
About The MindSpa Podcast
Thoughtful conversations about mental health, relationships, identity, and healing, grounded in clinical expertise and steady human insight.
Hosts
Tina Wilston, M.Ed., RP (CRPO Supervisor)
Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre
Michelle Massunken, MSW, RSW
Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre