Mental Health Struggles among Norwegian International Adoptees

This article explores mental health struggles experienced by international adoptees. A series of 26 qualitative retrospective interviews with international adoptees in Norway, aged 21-34 at the time of interview, shows how a considerable number of these adoptees experienced profound mental health issues, particularly depressive symptoms. The findings suggest that struggles relating to mental health are strongly associated with the challenge of constructing a sense of identity, the lack of a sense of belonging, and grieving for adoption-related losses. The adoptees with these struggles also tended to lack narrative agency-the ability and opportunity to change and influence one's own life course. This research has implications for policy and practice in the sense that adoptees' self-reports of mental health struggles, and their link to adoption-specific issues of identity and belonging, demonstrate the need for post-adoption services tailored to supporting adoptees in the construction of a secure sense of identity and belonging. Post-adoption support can help to reduce the risk of rumination over adoption-related questions in solitude and, as such, contribute to protecting the mental health of adoptees.