Therapy for Adoptive Parents in San Diego, CA

Serving San Diego, La Jolla, Del Mar, Carlsbad, Encinitas, and throughout San Diego County

Online sessions throughout California | Licensed CA LCSW #68507

Specialized Trauma Therapy for Parents on the Foster and Adoption Journey

You thought the hardest part would be getting approved, waiting for the call, finally bringing your child home. You were wrong.

The hardest part is waking up every morning with a knot in your stomach instead of joy, realizing that the depression everyone said would go away after your child arrived has only gotten worse, carrying the weight of a failed adoption that nobody around you seems to understand was a real loss, watching your body go into full panic mode every time your child has a meltdown because their dysregulation triggers something primal in your own nervous system.

You're doing everything right on paper: attending the therapy appointments, reading the books, joining the support groups, smiling for the family photos. But inside, you're breaking. Your chest stays tight, your shoulders live somewhere up near your ears, and you're so exhausted that sleep doesn't even touch it anymore. You're crying in parking lots, snapping at your partner over nothing, avoiding other parents because you can't explain your reality without either lying or saying too much.

The shame of struggling when you "chose this" makes everything unbearable.

The Real Struggles San Diego Adoptive Parents Are Facing

  • The adoption that didn't happen still haunts you.

    You bonded with that baby for months, supported the birth mother through her pregnancy, painted the nursery, told everyone the good news. Then she decided to parent, which was always her right, but nobody prepared you for the specific agony of grieving a child who was never legally yours. San Diego friends keep asking when you'll "move on" like this was just a disappointment instead of a death, and the thought of risking your heart again feels impossible even though you still desperately want to be a parent.

  • Post-adoption depression blindsided you.

    You expected to feel grateful, joyful, complete. Instead, you wake up every morning with dread, go through the motions of caregiving while feeling completely numb, smile for the photos while feeling nothing inside. Between 10% and 32% of adoptive parents experience this - both mothers and fathers - but nobody talks about it because admitting you're depressed after your child comes home feels like admitting you made a terrible mistake. The guilt about not feeling instant love is crushing, and you're terrified that needing help means you're not meant to be this child's parent.

  • Your child's behaviors trigger full-blown trauma responses in your own body.

    Their meltdowns send your nervous system into fight-or-flight mode, your heart pounding like you're in actual danger. You're walking on eggshells in your own home, hypervigilant and braced for the next crisis, never sure what will set things off. Some days you love your child but can't actually feel it through the fog of numbness and exhaustion. You're starting to understand that witnessing their pain day after day, absorbing their dysregulation into your own nervous system, is traumatizing you too.

  • Foster-to-adopt keeps ripping your heart open.

    You showed up for every court-ordered visit, drove hours for appointments, advocated for your foster child's best interests, loved them with everything you had. Then reunification happened, which you knew was always the goal, but the grief is still overwhelming and nobody seems to understand why you're not "over it" yet. You're caught between genuinely wanting what's best for that child and mourning the family you thought you were building, and the idea of starting over with another placement feels unbearable.

  • The infertility grief didn't disappear when your adopted child arrived.

    You thought adoption would heal that wound, that becoming a parent would be enough. Instead, the grief surfaces at random moments that catch you off guard: when the pediatrician asks for family medical history you don't have, when someone comments that your child doesn't look like you, when you wonder late at night if things would be different or easier with a biological child, when you see pregnant women and feel that familiar ache. You feel guilty for these thoughts, like grieving what never was means you're betraying the child you have.

Adoption Trauma Lives in Your Body

This isn't just stress you can manage with better time management or self-care bubble baths. Your body is keeping score of every traumatic moment, every loss, every day of walking on eggshells.

You're having panic attacks in grocery store parking lots, your heart racing for no apparent reason. You're lying awake at 3am replaying every interaction from the day, wondering if you're damaging your child, spiraling into worst-case scenarios. You're avoiding other San Diego parents at school drop-off because their complaints about homework battles feel like they're from another planet compared to what you're dealing with, and you don't know how to explain your reality without either lying or making them uncomfortable.

The isolation compounds everything. You can't post honestly in adoption Facebook groups without risking judgment or criticism. The agency support disappeared once the adoption was finalized. Your family keeps saying "but isn't this what you wanted?" like wanting to be a parent should erase every hard thing about how you got here. Even your friends with biological children don't understand why you're still struggling months or years later.

The exhaustion goes deeper than just needing sleep. It's the bone-deep weariness of carrying multiple griefs simultaneously: for the biological children you'll never have, for your child's birth family and their losses, for the imagined family life that doesn't match reality, for the version of yourself you're losing in the constant crisis management.

Why Regular Therapy Wasn’t Enough for Foster and Adoptive Trauma

You've probably already tried traditional therapy. Maybe your therapist was compassionate but kept giving you parenting strategies when what you actually needed was trauma treatment for yourself. Or they focused entirely on your child's healing with no acknowledgment that you're drowning too, that loving a traumatized child can traumatize you.

Maybe they didn't understand adoption at all, and you spent sessions educating them about attachment trauma, failed adoptions, and post-adoption depression instead of getting actual help. Research shows that 75% of adoptive parents rate their therapists as not adoption-competent; this gap is real, not something you're imagining.

Here's what's actually happening: traditional talk therapy works beautifully for processing thoughts and feelings, for understanding patterns and gaining insight. But when trauma lives in your body - when your heart races at certain triggers, when your chest stays tight for days, when grief feels physically heavy, when your nervous system is stuck in threat mode - you need approaches that work directly with your body and nervous system, not just your thoughts.

Trauma-Focused Approaches That Help San Diego Adoptive Parents Heal

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

helps your brain file traumatic memories where they actually belong: in the past, not in your present. The moment you learned the adoption fell through, the day your foster child was removed from your home, the first time you felt nothing when your child said "I love you," the panic attack you had in the Target parking lot - we can process these memories so your brain stops treating them like current threats. So you can think about difficult moments without your body reacting like they're happening right now, drive past the hospital where everything fell apart without your chest tightening, look at photos from that time without falling apart.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)

can rapidly reduce trauma symptoms and intrusive thoughts, often providing significant relief in just a few sessions rather than months or years of traditional therapy. It's particularly effective for the mental images that haunt you: seeing the birth mother walk away with the baby, replaying your child's worst meltdown, the look on the caseworker's face when they said your foster child was leaving. So you can get real relief faster, function better in your daily life while continuing to heal deeper layers, and not spend years in therapy just to get to a baseline of okay.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

recognizes that you're not broken or weak - you have different parts of yourself with competing needs and they're all trying to protect you in their own way. The part that loves your child fiercely, the part that's exhausted and fantasizes about running away, the part grieving your imagined family, the part desperate to be the perfect parent, the part that feels nothing - instead of these parts creating internal war and shame, they can learn to work together with compassion. So you can stop beating yourself up for having conflicting feelings, make decisions from a place of internal alignment instead of constant turmoil, and respond to your child from your values instead of your triggers.


Somatic therapy

works directly with your body's trauma responses instead of trying to think your way out of them. Those shoulders holding chronic tension and hypervigilance, that chest carrying grief and anxiety, that stomach churning every time the phone rings, that jaw clenched so tight it aches - we help your nervous system learn to regulate again, to find safety and calm in your own body. So you can actually relax during quiet moments instead of staying braced for the next crisis, sleep through the night without your body jolting awake in panic, breathe deeply without that constant tightness, and be present with your child instead of just surviving their presence.

Brainspotting

locates where trauma and grief are physically stored in your brain and nervous system, then helps release them without forcing you to relive every painful detail over and over. You don't have to retell the story of what happened to heal from it. So you can process the failed adoption, the depression, the secondary trauma without retraumatizing yourself in the therapy room, getting relief without years of talk therapy that leaves you feeling drained after every session.

What San Diego Adoptive Parents Experience When They Get Real Help

  • Your nervous system settles. You develop tools to calm your fight-or-flight response when your child's behaviors trigger you. You’ll stay present during meltdowns without yelling back, make parenting decisions from clarity instead of panic, and actually enjoy family dinners without waiting for something to go wrong.

  • The depression lifts. Slowly but surely, you have more moments where you can access joy alongside the challenges. The numbness gives way to feeling again, both the challenging feelings and the good ones. You’ll be able to laugh at your child's jokes without it feeling forced, initiate sex with your partner instead of avoiding intimacy, and plan activities you enjoy rather than just surviving each day.

  • You process grief without drowning in it. Whether it's grief from failed adoptions, infertility, or the family life you imagined, you’ll be able to honor these losses without being consumed by them. The waves of sadness still come, but they don't pull you under. You’ll be able to talk about your adoption journey with friends without breaking down, fill out your child's medical forms without spiraling about the missing genetic history, and show up for Mother's Day or Father's Day events without feeling like a fraud.

  • Shame loses its grip. You understand that struggling doesn't mean you're failing, and needing help doesn't mean you made the wrong choice by adopting. You’ll be able to ask your partner for help without feeling like you're admitting defeat, tell your friends the hard truths about your experience without sugar-coating it, and set boundaries with your child's school or caseworker when you need to advocate for your family.

  • You sleep through the night. Your body is no longer on edge, and the 3am anxiety spirals happen less and less. Irvine parents I work with report waking up with actual energy to face the day, being able to focus at work without brain fog, and having patience for bedtime routines instead of snapping at their kids because they're running on empty.

  • You reconnect with yourself. Underneath the exhaustion and constant crisis management, you rediscover the person you were before trauma took over. So you can pursue hobbies you used to love, have conversations with friends about topics other than your child's struggles, and make decisions about your career or future that aren't just about survival mode.

  • Your capacity expands. Not through pushing harder, but through healing. When your nervous system isn't constantly activated, when depression isn't draining your energy, when shame isn't weighing you down, you have more to give. You’ll be able to show up for your child's therapy appointments and school meetings without feeling resentful, reconnect physically and emotionally with your partner, and respond to texts from friends instead of isolating.

Virtual Therapy in San Diego and Throughout California

I provide secure telehealth sessions for adoptive parents across California, including throughout San Diego County and North County. You can meet with me from your home, your car during lunch break, or any private space with internet access - no commute time added to your already overwhelming schedule.

Session options:

  • 50-minute sessions: $300

  • 90-minute sessions: $450

  • 4-hour intensives: $1,200

I offer flexible scheduling including early mornings, evenings, and weekends to work around your family's needs.

I'm a private-pay provider and don't take insurance directly. I can provide documentation (Superbills) for out-of-network reimbursement if your insurance plan offers it.

Self-Schedule or Contact Here

About Summer Verhines, LCSW, Adoption Therapist

I work with adoptive parents throughout San Diego County because I understand that adoption doesn't just affect your child, it profoundly impacts you. 

I’ve been licensed to independently practice in California since 2015 (CA LCSW #68507). I have 9 years of experience in child welfare and adoption and I am C.A.S.E. registered (Center for Adoption Support and Education) and completed Adoption Competency training through the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI).

I specialize in supporting adoptive parents through their own mental health challenges: post-adoption depression, secondary trauma, and the grief and burnout that comes with this journey.

Using specialized trauma approaches, I help you heal from failed adoptions, process your own trauma responses, and find sustainable ways to manage the ongoing stress without losing yourself in the process.

Learn more about Summer here

FAQs

  • All sessions are conducted online through secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth. You can meet with me from anywhere in California - your home, your office, your car in the Target parking lot if that's the only private space you have. For San Diego parents juggling work schedules, therapy appointments, school meetings, and everything else, virtual therapy means no commute time and maximum flexibility with scheduling.

  • Traditional talk therapy helps you understand your thoughts, process feelings, and gain insight into patterns - which has value but often isn't enough when trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. The specialized approaches I use - EMDR, Brainspotting, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and Somatic therapy - work directly with your nervous system to release trauma at a deeper level. These aren't just coping strategies to manage symptoms; they actually help your brain and body process and resolve traumatic experiences so they stop controlling your present life. Many adoptive parents find that years of traditional therapy helped them understand their struggles but didn't actually relieve them - body-based trauma work is what finally creates real change.

  • It depends on what you're working on and which therapeutic approaches we use together. Accelerated Resolution Therapy is specifically designed for short-term focused work - many parents experience significant relief within just 3-5 sessions when addressing specific traumatic memories like a failed adoption, placement disruption, or a particular crisis. Other parents work with me for several months to process multiple layers of adoption-related trauma: the infertility grief, the failed placements, the post-adoption depression, the secondary trauma from their child's behaviors. Traditional cognitive-behavioral talk therapy often takes years to see meaningful change - these body-based trauma methods are significantly more efficient and effective. We'll discuss your specific goals in our first session and create a realistic timeline based on what you're dealing with.

  • Absolutely. I work with adoptive parents at every single stage of this journey: waiting to be matched with a birth mother, supporting a birth mother through pregnancy and wondering if she'll change her mind, recovering from a failed placement that fell through, navigating the uncertainty of foster-to-adopt, newly home with your child and struggling with the reality, or years into parenting and realizing you need help. Your struggles are completely valid regardless of where you are in the adoption process - you don't have to wait until everything is "official" to get support for what you're going through.

  • I'm a private-pay provider because it allows me to actually focus on what helps you heal rather than what insurance companies will reimburse, which is often limited to approaches that don't work well for adoption trauma. However, I can provide detailed documentation called Superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your insurance plan offers that benefit. Many adoptive parents discover that investing in specialized trauma therapy with someone who actually understands adoption saves them years of ineffective but insurance-covered talk therapy that doesn't address the root issues and leaves them still struggling.

Ready to Work With Someone Who Actually Understands Adoption Trauma?

You don't have to keep carrying all of this alone. You need someone with real experience in child welfare and adoption who understands the specific trauma of this journey, not generic parenting advice, but expert help for what you're going through right now.

Let's talk about how trauma therapy can help you heal while you continue loving and showing up for your child.

Self-Schedule or Contact Here