Open Adoption Therapy | Yoffe Therapy

What Is Open Adoption Therapy?

Navigating the Relationship No One Planned For

Open adoption, where birth and adoptive families have ongoing contact, is now the most common form of domestic infant adoption in the United States. Most adoptive families enter open adoption arrangements with genuine openness and warmth. And yet: over time, contact agreements can become strained, expectations diverge, children ask difficult questions, and everyone involved may struggle with feelings they don't quite have words for.

At Yoffe Therapy, we provide therapy for all members of the open adoption relationship: adoptees processing the presence of their birth family in their lives, birth parents navigating ongoing contact with complicated feelings, and adoptive parents learning to co-navigate a relationship they never expected. We help families communicate across this unique constellation, set boundaries that honor everyone, and support the adoptee at the center of it all.

Who This Specialty Is For

✦ Adoptive families with open adoption agreements experiencing tension or confusion
✦ Birth parents struggling with the emotional complexity of ongoing contact
✦ Adoptees who have questions or complicated feelings about their birth family contact
✦ Families preparing to disclose adoption or expand contact
✦ Those navigating disrupted or terminated open adoption agreements

Treatment Approaches

Family Systems Therapy

Understanding how the open adoption triad functions as an interconnected system, and how changes in one relationship affect all the others.

Attachment-Based Mediation Support

Helping birth and adoptive families navigate contact agreements and communication in ways that center the adoptee's security.

Narrative Therapy

Helping adoptees construct a coherent narrative that integrates both families, and helping all parties find language for the relationship they share.

Grief and Ambiguous Loss Work

Addressing the ongoing grief that can surface in open adoption, including for birth parents with contact but not presence, and adoptees navigating two families.

Find Support for Your Open Adoption

Our adoption-literate therapists understand the unique complexity of open adoption, for every member of the constellation.

Meet Our Therapists →