Abstract

Background. The issue of secondary failures in adopting children without parental care requires more attention to the preliminary psychological work with candidates for adoptive parents, in particular, to assessing motivation for child adoption. The paper examines the possible risks and limitations of the diagnostic approach associated with "functional" and "dysfunctional" motives, justifies the advantages of targeting the tasks of accompanying and counseling families.

The Objective of the paper is to describe a new method for studying the expectations and attitudes of parents based on the technique of repertory grids, identifying empirically valid criteria for interpreting the results and demonstrating the application methods on the case analysis.

Research Progress. Parents from 20 families with adopted children and parents from 18 families from the control group filled in the rank repertory grids and assessed children's photographs, and also members of their family according to certain constructs. The grids were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed.

Research Results. The data are presented on the distribution of quantitative indices (indicators of the complexity of correlation links, relevance of constructs to the issue of child adoption, predominance of dissimilar categories of constructs), with lower and upper quartiles to groups the subjects according to high and low indices. Based on the case analysis, a holistic approach to interpretation is illustrated, combining the evaluation of quantitative characteristics and qualitative data analysis.

Conclusion. Using the technique of repertory grids allows to assess the parent dominant expectations of interacting with the child, their flexibility, relevance and control of experiences related to child's adoption, and also the existence of distorted attitudes toward existing children. The interview form allows to use the method for joint targets of problem-oriented therapy, clarifies realistic expectations and percieved decision-making.