Online Therapy for Adult Adoptees in Annapolis, MD
For adult adoptees sorting through identity, relationships, reunion, and grief. Serving Annapolis, Severna Park, Crofton, Arnold, Edgewater, and throughout Anne Arundel County.
Adoption-competent therapy in Annapolis
You've always been good at reading a room. Knowing what people need you to be and becoming that person before anyone has to ask. It's a skill that's served you well, at work, in relationships, in every new community you've landed in. But there's a cost to being that adaptable, and you're starting to feel it.
There's a difference between fitting in and belonging, and you feel it most in the quiet moments when roots come up. When someone talks about their family going back generations. When a friend traces her daughter's stubborn streak to her great-aunt and you realize you can't trace anything in yourself to anyone you're biologically related to. When your child asks where your family is from and you don't have a complete answer.
Maybe you grew up adopted into a family that loved you, and the unspoken agreement was that love should be enough to settle any questions. In a community that values tradition and legacy, wondering about your origins can feel like you're questioning the foundation of the family that chose you. So you learned to keep the questions to yourself. Or maybe you're a military spouse or veteran, and you've moved so many times that adoption just became one more thing you packed up and carried without examining. Now you're settled, and the questions have caught up to you.
Maybe the shift was a DNA test that returned matches you didn't expect. Maybe it was becoming a parent and looking at your baby's face, the first face that shares your genetics, and feeling a grief you didn't know you were carrying alongside a joy you can barely contain.
How body-based, adoption-competent therapy works
You can probably already explain your own reactions better than most people in your life could. You know you pull away when someone gets close, you know you scan for signs that people are about to leave, and you know you've spent most of your life adjusting who you are to make sure you belong. Understanding all of that hasn't changed the reactions, because they started before you had language for any of it, some of them before you had memory.
The therapeutic approaches I use are designed to reach the places where those early experiences are still running the show. You won't need to narrate every painful detail or relive your worst moments to make progress, and much of this work happens with reactions and feelings that don't translate neatly into words, the kind that live in your body's responses rather than in your conscious thoughts.
What clients describe after this work isn't that the memories are gone, because the adoption is still part of your story and always will be. What changes is that the old reactions lose their grip. The memory is still there, but it stops driving your decisions. You can ask questions about your origins without the guilt telling you it means you're ungrateful for the family who raised you, you can let someone get close without your whole body bracing for the moment they leave, and you can sit with complicated feelings about your story without needing to shut them down or let them take over your entire week.
I already understand the competing loyalties, the grief that sits right next to the gratitude, and the particular exhaustion of performing "fine" for people who need you to be okay with your story. So when you walk into a session, you can go straight to the thing that's keeping you up at night.
What Changes in Your Daily Life
You tell your adoptive parents that you've decided to search for your birth mother, and you say it without apologizing. Your mother's expression shifts, and instead of immediately backtracking, you stay steady. You say "I love you and I need to do this," and you let the silence that follows just be silence instead of rushing to fill it.
You open a message from a DNA match and you read it without the old rush of adrenaline. You take a few days to figure out what you actually want from the contact before you respond, and the decision comes from clarity rather than panic.
You're at a gathering and someone mentions how their son has his grandmother's exact laugh, and instead of the familiar pang, you notice it and let it pass. You drive home feeling like yourself rather than like someone playing a role.
You tell your partner that the comment his mother made about your daughter "finally looking like a real member of the family" hurt, and you explain why without minimizing it. He asks questions, and you don't interpret his confusion as dismissal. The rest of the evening doesn't disappear into tension.
You make a decision about a biological family member, whether to meet, whether to write back, whether to set a boundary, and the decision is yours. You trust your own judgment.
Who this works well for:
I work with adult adoptees in Annapolis and throughout Anne Arundel County from all adoption backgrounds: domestic infant, international, transracial, foster care, kinship, and late-discovery (people who found out they were adopted later in life or through DNA testing). You don't need to have had a difficult adoption to benefit from this work. Many of my clients had loving families and still carry unresolved questions, grief, or relationship responses connected to adoption.
This is a good fit if you're processing DNA results, weighing a search for birth family, navigating a reunion or its aftermath, noticing adoption-related responses in your relationships or parenting, or finding that identity questions have grown louder as you've gotten older.
This may not be the right fit if you need help locating birth family members. However, I’d be happy to refer you to search resources.
About Me
I'm Summer Verhines, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (Maryland LCSW-C #34104) with C.A.S.E. certification in adoption competency. C.A.S.E. (the Center for Adoption Support and Education) provides the leading training program for therapists working with adoptees.
I spent nine years in child welfare and adoption before I became a therapist. I've worked with every part of the adoption constellation: birth families making impossible decisions, adoptive families navigating unfamiliar terrain, and the children whose lives were shaped by all of it. Many of those children are now adults, and the questions they carried as kids didn't go away. They just got quieter.
If you're an adult adoptee in Annapolis or anywhere in Maryland ready to work on any of this, you can schedule a session or reach out through the contact form below.
Online Adoption Therapy for Adult Adoptees Throughout Maryland
Logistics
50-minute Sessions are $250.
I also offer 90-minute sessions for $375 and intensive sessions (2-4 hours) ranging from $500 to $1000 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
Contact Summer
Frequently Asked Questions
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The first session is a conversation. You tell me what's going on, what brought you here, and what you want to change. I ask questions to understand your adoption history, your current responses, and what feels most urgent. We don't jump into EMDR or Brainspotting on day one. Most clients start body-based work in sessions two or three, once we have a clear picture of what we're working on and you feel ready. The first session is also your chance to see whether working together feels like a good fit.
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For many Maryland adoptees, sealed records meant decades without access to original birth certificates, birth parents' names, or medical history. If your adoption was finalized between 1947 and 1999, you still need a court order to access your original records. Adoptions finalized after January 1, 2000 allow access at age 21, though birth parents can file a disclosure veto. DNA testing has created an entirely separate pathway to information for many adoptees. If you're navigating any of these situations, whether you've recently gained access to records or discovered biological family through DNA, this is something I work with regularly.
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If you move to another state, we would need to pause our work because my license only covers Maryland, California, and Idaho. That said, many military families stay in the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County area long-term, and telehealth means our work isn't disrupted by temporary duty travel or short-term relocations within Maryland. If you do PCS out of state, I can help you find an adoption-competent therapist in your new location.
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If your previous therapy was talk-based, you likely developed a strong understanding of your adoption-related responses without being able to change the underlying reactions. Body-based approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, and ART work with the nervous system directly, which is where adoption-related responses are stored. The understanding you already have is an asset, it means we can move quickly into the deeper work rather than spending months building a foundation.
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Sessions are $250. I'm a private pay practice, which means I don't bill insurance directly. After each session, I provide a detailed receipt called a superbill that you can submit to your insurance company, and depending on your plan, they may reimburse you for a significant portion of the cost. You can call the number on the back of your insurance card and ask "do I have out-of-network mental health benefits?" to find out before we start.
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No. You need to be physically located anywhere in Maryland during our sessions because my license (LCSW-C #34104) covers the entire state. I'm also licensed in California and Idaho.