Online Therapy for Adoptive Parents in Baltimore, MD
Therapy for adoptive parents carrying the weight of parenting that no one prepared you for. Serving Baltimore, Towson, Catonsville, Pikesville, Owings Mills, and throughout Baltimore County.
Adoption therapy in Baltimore, MD
The hardest calls are the ones from school in the middle of your workday. You see the number and already know: another incident, another early pickup, another drive across town wondering how long you can keep this up before your job is affected.
At work, people quietly question whether everything is okay at home, the school suggests more structure or consequences, and your child's therapist asks what changed in your parenting.
And nobody seems to notice that you're the one absorbing all of it, that your child saves their worst moments for you because you're the safest person in their life, and that the thing everyone keeps treating as a parenting problem is slowly grinding you down.
What often goes unrecognized is what this is doing to you. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix, the anxiety that starts before your feet hit the floor in the morning, the way you've started dreading the sound of your own phone.
You're grieving things you can't say out loud without sounding like you regret your child: the family life you pictured, the weekends you can't have because your kid can't handle them, the friendships that quietly fell away because nobody understood what your life looks like now.
You love your child and you're exhausted at the same time, and there's no version of that sentence that doesn't make you feel guilty.
You used to be someone who felt competent: good at your job, steady in a crisis, and someone people could count on. Now you're making mistakes at work because you can't concentrate, snapping at your partner over nothing, and wondering how you got to a place where the most important thing you've ever done is the thing that's breaking you down.
More about adoption therapy for adoptive parents here.
How adoption therapy works for adoptive parents
You've probably read every book, taken every training, and tried every parenting strategy the adoption community recommends. You understand why your child hides food in her pillowcase, why he flinches when you raise your voice even though you've never given him a reason to, why bedtime turns into a battle every single night. You have the knowledge, and you're still losing it at 7pm when nothing you've learned seems to work on a child who's screaming that you're not their real parent.
The gap between what you know and what you can do in those moments isn't about effort or education. When your child melts down and your heart starts pounding and your thinking brain goes offline, your body is reacting to months or years of living in crisis mode. You've been absorbing your child's distress day after day, and your brain has started treating every escalation as an emergency, responding before you have a chance to choose how you want to show up.
That's where my work focuses. The therapeutic approaches I use work directly with how your body responds to stress, so the parenting tools you already have can function the way they're supposed to. You won't need to spend weeks retelling your story or narrating every hard moment from the beginning. Much of this work happens at the level of the physical stress response, the racing heart, the tight jaw, the urge to shut down or yell or walk away, and helps it shift so you can stay present when things get hard at home.
I spent nine years working in child welfare and adoption before becoming a therapist. I sat in placement meetings, reviewed case files, and worked alongside families from the very first day a child came home.
That means I already understand what food hoarding means, why the anniversary of a placement can bring everything rushing back, and how exhausting it is to love a child who tests your relationship every day because testing is the only way they've ever learned to figure out if someone will stay.
So when you describe what's happening in your house, you can go straight to what you need help with.
What changes with specialized, adoption-competent therapy
You'll stay in the room when your child is falling apart. Right now when the screaming starts, your body takes over before your brain catches up, your heart races, your jaw locks, and you either match their intensity or shut down completely. After doing this work, you'll feel the activation start and be able to stay with it instead of being hijacked by it. Your child will melt down at dinner and you'll keep your voice steady, not because you're performing calm, but because your body has genuinely learned that their distress isn't an emergency you have to fix in the next thirty seconds. The meltdown will still be hard, but it won't ruin the whole evening, and your child will learn something about what it looks like when someone stays.
You'll feel things again, including the good ones. The numbness that settled in somewhere along the way, the one that makes you go through the motions of family life without feeling much of anything, will start to lift. Your child will say something funny at breakfast and you'll laugh before you've decided whether it's a good day or a bad day. You'll feel genuine warmth when they climb into your lap instead of just relief that they're not in crisis. You'll look at your partner across the room and feel something other than exhaustion and logistics.
You'll stop carrying the shame of struggling with something you chose. You wanted this child. You fought for this child. And some days you wonder what you were thinking, and the guilt of that thought is worse than the hard day that produced it. When the shame loosens, you'll be able to tell your partner you need a break without it feeling like a confession. You'll be honest with your close friends about the hard days instead of performing the grateful, happy adoption story everyone wants to hear. You'll advocate for your child at school without the fear that asking for help means admitting you can't handle this.
You'll grieve what you lost without the grief swallowing your whole week. Whether the grief is about infertility, a failed match, the biological connection you'll never have with your child, or the version of family life you pictured before reality set in, it won’t eclipse the joy. You’ll be able to attend a baby shower without needing to leave early. You'll fill out the school medical history form with its blank spaces and move on with your afternoon instead of carrying it into the next day.
You'll sleep through the night and have energy left for your own life. The 3am anxiety spirals, the ones where you replay every mistake and plan for every catastrophe, will lose their frequency and their intensity. You'll fall asleep without running through tomorrow's potential disasters, wake up without the dread already sitting on your chest, and have enough energy left after the kids are in bed to read something that has nothing to do with adoption or parenting or trauma.
You'll remember that you're a person outside of being this child's parent. Somewhere in the crisis management and the appointments and the IEP meetings and the constant vigilance, you lost track of the parts of yourself that existed before all of this. You'll pick up a hobby you abandoned three years ago, make plans with a friend and keep them, have a conversation about something other than your child's progress, and make a decision about your own career or your own life without the guilt telling you that wanting something for yourself means you're taking something from your family.
You'll have more of yourself to bring home at the end of the day. When your body stops running on high alert all the time, when the depression isn't draining your reserves before noon, when the shame stops taking up so much space, you simply have more to give. Not because you've tried harder or pushed through, but because the weight you've been carrying has gotten lighter. You'll return a friend's text, sit on the floor and play with your child without watching the clock, have a real conversation with your partner after the kids go to bed, and feel like a person who's living their life instead of just surviving it.
Serving Adoptive Parents Throughout Baltimore
My practice serves adoptive parents across Baltimore City and Baltimore County, including families in Federal Hill, Canton, Fells Point, Mount Washington, Roland Park, Hampden, Towson, Catonsville, Dundalk, Essex, and surrounding areas. I provide online therapy to anyone in Maryland, which means location doesn't limit access to specialized care.
I worked in child welfare and with adoptive families for nine years before starting my private practice. I've sat across from foster parents who just lost a placement to reunification, walked adoptive parents through the aftermath of a failed match, and supported families through the slow grind of parenting a child who doesn't feel safe enough to let you love them yet.
I'm C.A.S.E. trained (Center for Adoption Support and Education), which means I have specialized certification in adoption-competent therapy. That training shapes how I understand what's happening in your home, the difference between a child who's being defiant and a child who's terrified, the grief that hits after finalization when everyone else expects you to be celebrating, the exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix because your body has been running on high alert for months or years.
I hold an active Maryland LCSW-C license (#34104). If you're an adoptive parent in Maryland, I'd love to work with you. You can schedule a session or reach out through the contact form below.
Hello! I’m Summer
Logistics
50-minute Sessions are $300.
I also offer 90-minute sessions for $450 and intensive sessions (2-4 hours) ranging from $600 to $1200 for people who want to work intensively.
I don't take insurance directly, but I can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan covers that.
I am available early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I provide services online only.
Self-Schedule or Contact Me Below
For the quickest and most confidential option, you’re encouraged to book directly into my calendar by clicking the Self-Schedule Here button below. That button will take you to my HIPAA-compliant calendar where you may request an appointment. Once I confirm your appointment request (typically within 24 hours), I will email you the new client forms to digitally sign. Then, we will meet on your scheduled day.
If you have questions prior to scheduling, you can also use the contact form below, and I’ll reply within 48 business hours. If you don’t see a reply, please check your junk/spam folder.
I look forward to hearing from you!
— Summer Verhines, LCSW