Qualitative research on mental hearth – Berlino 19-20-21 settembre 2018
“Adoptees searching for information about their origins: a participatory research to bring out their point of view”
Laura Malacrida, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano e CTA, Gloriana Rangone, direttrice della scuola di psicoterapia IRIS e psicoterapeuta CTA
This presentation will talk about the participatory research approach and its application in the adoption studies, in particular about the study made by C.T.A. and the Cattolica University of Milan, about Italian young adult adoptees searching for their birth parents. After an introduction about the fundamental principles and the methodology of participatory research and a short literature review about some experience in using this approach for social research, we will concentrate about why we choose to use this specific method for a research on adoptees searching for information about their birth parents. In the most of psycho-social researches about this theme, we could find some analysis concerning laws in different countries to regulate the access to information about the origins; others researches concerning information adoptees would like to get; other researches that analyse searcher objectives. With this participatory research, we want to focus on adoptees and on their experience of research, their relationship with Italian laws and procedures and what they think could be necessary changed or improved in this field. 71 Our aims is to use this research outcomes: • To improve adoptees’ mental health, within family therapy treatments; • To build a specialized service to support adoptivees in their search.
