Online Therapy for Adult Adoptees in Bethesda, MD
For adult adoptees sorting through identity, relationships, reunion, and grief. Serving Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac, Rockville, Silver Spring, and throughout Montgomery County.
From the outside, your life looks like it all came together.
You've built a life, built relationships, and showed up for the people around you. And most of the time, that's enough to keep the deeper questions quiet. But if you’re honest, they don't go away. They surface when someone asks about your heritage and you give the short answer because the real one is too complicated for casual conversation.
Maybe the questions have always been there, running underneath a life that looks put-together from the outside. Adoption has always been the thing you mention briefly and move past, the thing that doesn't fit neatly into the version of yourself you present to the world. You were told you were chosen, and for a long time, that narrative was enough.
Then something shifted.
A DNA test returned matches you weren't expecting, your adoptive father's health started declining, and with it the window for asking questions you've been holding since you were a teenager, or you became a parent yourself, and the first time you looked at your child's face, the face of someone who shares your genetics, something cracked open that you didn't know how to close again.
Or maybe you were adopted transracially and raised in a family that didn't look like you, in a community that talks about diversity and inclusion but still doesn't quite understand what it means to grow up as a person of color in a predominantly white neighborhood.
The questions about race and adoption have always been tangled together, and nobody in your life seems equipped to help you untangle them.
Adoption-competent therapy in Bethesda and throughout Maryland
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 people needing 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.
How Therapy for Adult Adoptees Can Help
You tell your partner that you've decided to search for your birth mother, and you say it clearly instead of framing it as a hypothetical or testing their reaction first. They ask questions, some clumsy, and you don't interpret the clumsiness as resistance. You have a real conversation instead of the careful, edited version you've been offering for years.
You open an email from a DNA match and you read it without the old flood of adrenaline. You take time to figure out what you actually want from the contact before you respond, and the decision comes from clarity rather than panic or desperate hope.
You stop overperforming at work because you've separated the compulsion to earn your place from the genuine ambition that drives your career. You say no to a project that doesn't interest you, and nobody discards you for it. Your evenings free up. You sleep better.
Another parent asks where your daughter "gets her curls," and instead of the old gut-punch feeling, you answer however you want to answer. The interaction doesn't follow you home.
You make a decision about reunion, whether to meet a biological relative, whether to set a boundary with one who wants more contact than you're ready for, whether to step back entirely, and the decision is yours. You trust your own judgment.
I work with adult adoptees in Bethesda and throughout Montgomery 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 patterns 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 patterns in your relationships or parenting, or finding that identity questions have grown more pressing over time.
This may not be the right fit if you need help locating birth family members, but I’d be happy to refer you to search resources.
Who this works well for
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 worked in child welfare and adoptions for nine years before becoming a therapist. I sat with hundreds of families navigating the adoption system: birth families, adoptive families, and the children at the center of it all. Many of those children are now adults carrying the same questions and complicated feelings you are.
If you're an adult adoptee in Bethesda 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 Therapy for Adult Adoptees Throughout Maryland
All sessions are through secure telehealth. You can work with me from your home in Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring, Chevy Chase, Potomac, Wheaton, Gaithersburg, or anywhere in 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
-
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 patterns, 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.
-
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.
-
Yes. Race and adoption are deeply intertwined for transracial adoptees, and separating them rarely helps. Growing up in a family that didn't share your racial background, particularly in an area like Montgomery County where diversity is discussed frequently but adoptee-specific identity questions are rarely understood, creates specific experiences around belonging and cultural identity. I work with transracial adoptees regularly and understand how these layers interact.
-
If your previous therapy was talk-based, you likely developed a strong understanding of your adoption-related patterns 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 here, it means we can move quickly into the deeper work rather than spending months building a foundation.
-
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.
-
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.