Search Results for Biological parent

1. The Search for a Person’s Biological Identity

   The following is a an article published in the Spring 2014 edition of The Forum   The Search for a Person’s Biological Identity By Michael Blumenfield, M.D.   Philomena-One of Several Films Defines The Issue One of the top movies of 2013 is Philomena. This is the story of an elderly woman, (played magnificently by […]

2. What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman (Book Review)

   What She Left Behind By Ellen Marie Wiseman This book is composed of two interweaving stories. Clara, a woman who lived in the 1930s was committed to a mental institution against her will based on her wealthy father’s unhappiness about her Italian immigrant boyfriend and her refusal to marry the rich guy that her father […]

3. The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry – 75 Years from Now

   The following is a shortened edited version of the Presidential Address which I gave at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry held in New York May 2014.  This article in edited form will also appear in the next issue of the The Forum, a magazine published by the […]

4. Discussion of the Phenomena of Unknown Family Members

   In my last blog I reviewed the recent movie People Like Us. This film is about the situation where upon the death of his father, a man discovers that he has a half sister and a nephew that never knew about. This is not an unusual situation and in fact there are many variations on […]

5. Yearning For Reunion

   A recent movie Mother & Child is about the yearning for a reunion between a mother and child where the child was given away for adoption at birth. Four vignettes are presented of parents and children separated at an early age where there is a subsequent desire for reunion. Some of the possible determinants of this feeling are discussed. A recent report of Jewish children given away to be raised with non Jewish families during the Holocaust is also discussed. Questions are raised how adoptions, including international adoptions should be handled to take into account future desires of the participants for reunion.