| Sumario: | Emotional and epigenetic processes in adoptive families have a profound impact on the adopted child's development and life course. A common view of the family as a social or psychological unit with shared genes leads to a focus on the adopted child's genetic history and presumed lasting trauma associated with separation from the birth family. Bowen theory offers an alternative view of the family as a self-regulating emotional unit that variably shapes the child in ways that reflect levels of chronic anxiety and differentiation, or emotional maturity. Moreover, cross-species studies in epigenetics suggest that plasticity in gene expression occurs in both adoptee and adoptive family members when adding a new member.
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