Children and EEs/EHEs Record Type: Review   ID: 754
Synchronicity and Reunion: The Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birthparents Stiffler, LaVonne Harper
The author reports on her doctoral research into ways in which adopted children and their birth parents find each other, especially once one side institutes a search. She presents anecdotal accounts of "the extraordinary phenomena reported by so many people as humorous or uncanny coincidences, somehow marked in the mind and realized as significant at reunion, perhaps 20 or 40 years later. Do these experiences hint at a form of extrasensory communication, divine guidance, or a connecting genetic program far more intricate than yet unraveled by imaginative scientists? An exploration of these anomalistic (not following ordinary rules) phenomena seems important to a deeper understanding of the total union/loss/reunion experience of adoption-separated families" (p. 4). She observes that less than two decades ago such accounts were not so readily available because of "self-imposed and societal secrecy," but adoption support groups led to sharing of stories. The types of connection she uncovered are evident in phrases taken from chapter titles such as: "by search and reunion" (the search itself is often marked by synchronicities and anomalous occurrences); by "coincidence" (such as being drawn to the same state or even the same town; or sharing similar quirks or predelictions; by a "cosmic designer?" (sense of being guided); by "names;" "memory" (possibly prenatal, influencing one's likes and dislikes); "by the psychic" (ESP); "by genetic architecture" (patterns of similarity); and "by family time" (e.g., synchronicities in dates, such as one's child's birthday being the same as one's birth mother). Stiffler reports some interesting anecdotes, several of them EHEs, and she has amassed a considerable bibliography. She has laid the initial groundwork for future research in a new area.
Publisher Information:	Hobe Sound, FL: FEA Publishing, 1992. 189p. Bibl: 179-189; 14 figs

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