Online Therapy for Adoptive Parents in Columbia, MD
Therapy for adoptive parents carrying the weight of parenting that no one prepared you for. Serving Columbia, Ellicott City, Elkridge, Laurel, Clarksville, and throughout Howard County.
Adoption therapy for adoptive parents in Columbia, MD
When you're parenting a child through adoption in Columbia, the moment you realize you need help can feel like both relief and defeat. Maybe your eight-year-old melts down every time you leave for work, and the school is suggesting you get him evaluated. Maybe your teenager just told you she wants to find her birth mother, and you don't know whether to feel hurt or supportive. Maybe you're lying awake at 2am wondering if the rages, the lying, the constant testing of every boundary means something is fundamentally broken, or if it means you're the wrong parent for this child.
You've been holding all of this without much support. Your friends with biological kids offer advice that doesn't apply, your family thinks your child just needs more discipline, and you've smiled through enough "have you tried being more consistent" conversations to last a lifetime. The parenting strategies that work for other families don't work for yours, and the gap between what you expected adoption to look like and what your daily life looks like keeps getting wider.
Meanwhile, nobody asks how you're doing. Not the version where you say "fine" and change the subject, but the real version, the one where you're so tired you can't think straight, where you've started dreading weekends because there's no break from the intensity, where you love your child completely and some days don't like being in the same room with them, and the guilt of that thought weighs more than the exhaustion.
More about how I work with adoptive parents here.
How 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 when adoptive parents get the support they need
You'll take your family to Centennial Park without spending the drive there bracing for disaster. Right now every outing is a risk assessment. You're scanning for triggers before you've unbuckled your seatbelt, planning escape routes in case things go sideways, never fully present because part of you is always monitoring. After this work, you'll spread out a blanket by the lake and watch your kids play and feel something closer to normal. The outing won't be perfect, but it won't be something you have to recover from either.
You'll stay steady when your child is falling apart. When the meltdown comes, and it will still come, your body won't immediately match their intensity. You'll feel the stress rise and be able to stay with it instead of snapping or shutting down. Your child will rage at dinner and you'll keep your voice even, not because you're performing calm, but because your body has learned that their worst moments aren't emergencies you have to solve in the next thirty seconds.
You'll feel the hard feelings without them meaning you've failed. The rage, the resentment, the grief over the family life you pictured that doesn't match reality, those feelings will still come. But you'll be able to sit with them without the guilt spiral that follows, the one that says feeling angry at your child means you made the wrong choice or you're not cut out for this. You'll tell your partner you need a break and it won't feel like a confession.
You'll plan your child's birthday party without catastrophizing for a week beforehand. You'll send the invitations, order the cake, and handle the day as it comes instead of running through every possible disaster scenario on a loop. When something does go sideways, because something always does with kids, you'll manage it and move on instead of carrying it into the next week.
You'll have enough left at the end of the day for your own life. After the kids are in bed, you'll sit on the couch and feel something other than depleted. You'll read a book, have a real conversation with your partner, return a friend's text. You'll start to remember that you're a person with your own interests and your own needs, and wanting those things doesn't take anything away from your child.
You'll stop pretending you’re “fine” when someone asks. When someone asks how things are going, you'll have the option of telling the truth without it feeling like the whole facade will collapse. You'll be honest with your close friends about the hard days, set limits with relatives who don't understand, and stop curating the version of your family that makes everyone else comfortable.
You'll grieve what you've lost without the grief running your whole week. Whether the grief is about infertility, a failed match, the relationship with your child that you imagined during the home study, or the version of yourself that existed before all of this, it will still surface. But it won't swallow the weekend. You'll feel it, let it be there, and still show up for the soccer game that afternoon.
Serving Adoptive Parents Throughout Columbia and Howard County
My practice serves adoptive parents across Columbia and throughout Howard County, including families in Oakland Mills, Wilde Lake, Harper's Choice, Long Reach, Owen Brown, and the surrounding areas.
Whether you live near the lakefront, in one of the neighborhoods off Route 175, or in the newer developments east of Route 29, you can access specialized therapy for adoptive parents through secure online sessions.
I'm licensed to provide online adoption therapy throughout Maryland, which means distance doesn't limit access to this specialized care. If you're in Ellicott City, Laurel, Fulton, or anywhere else in the state, we can work together remotely.
I also work with adoptive parents in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Bethesda.
About Summer
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 like to talk with you. You can schedule a session or reach out through the contact form below.
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