Nurturing attachment and letting go : counselling foster carers living this paradox

Abstract

Literature on foster carers depicts how they experience ambiguous emotions when children are placed in their care. This research seeks to establish how counselling can help foster carers deal with the paradox of creating a healthy attachment with the children in their care whilst preparing them to be reunited with their biological families, if and when this occurs. The qualitative methodology adopted in this research uses narrative inquiry with three Maltese couples who are foster carers. Autoethnography by the researcher, a foster carer is also employed. The research gives a voice to the foster carers to tell their stories that would otherwise remain untold. The findings presented in poetic stanzas narrate a journey of ambivalent and ambiguous emotions that foster carers experience in their daily lives. This shows that foster carers do indeed live the paradox of attachment and letting go from the moment the children are put in their care together with a series of other experiences that are also shared. Literature concludes that counselling can help foster carers deal with this paradox by helping them gain a better understanding of themselves, their attachment styles and internal working models. Counselling also helps them deal with past unexplored losses such as unborn children, childlessness and „empty nests‟. Recommendations are presented in the final chapter of this work, all of which are based on the findings and which can be utilised for further research in the field of foster care.