pathology" (Wegar, 1995). Also in agreement with Wegar, McRoy, and Baran is Frisk. Baran et al. (1975) wrote, "Frisk conceptualized that the lack of family background knowledge in the adoptee prevents the development of a healthy 'genetic ego' . ." In most of the studies surveyed, the researchers are in agreement about one fact. Vital to the adopted adolescent's identity development is the knowledge of the birth family and the circumstances surrounding the adoption. Without this information, the adolescent has difficulty deciding which family (birth or adopted) he resembles. During the search for an identity in adolescence, the child may face an array of problems including "hostility toward the adoptive parents, rejection of anger toward the birth parents, self-hatred, transracial adoption concerns, feeling of rootlessness . . . ." (McRoy et al., 1990). While searching for an identity, adolescent adoptees sometimes are involved in a behavior which psychologist's term 'family romance.' This is not a romance in a sexual manner, but rather a romance in the sense of fantasizing about birth parents and their personal qualities. Horner and Rosenberg (1991) stated that "the adopted child may develop a family romance in order to defend against painful facts." Often times, adoptees wonder why they were adopted, and because closed-adoptions are common, the adoptee is left with many unanswered questions about the circumstances of the adoption. The adoptee may have a tendency to harbor negative feelings about himself, feeling like he was unwanted, bad, or rejected by the birth parent. These feelings can be quite powerful, so the adoptee will engage in this family romancing behavior in order to offset the negative feelings and try to reconcile his identity crisis. This point is stressed by Horner and Rosenberg (1991) when they write, "The painful reality to be confronted by adoptees is that their biological parents did not want, or were unable, to f...
