Being able to question, reject, and rewrite the dominant narratives that make adoptees the object rather than the subject of their stories is essential to finding healing and wholeness. Permission to explore origin (and other adoption) stories and rewrite them as teens and adults helps adoptees to become more integrated by allowing them to connect to the parts of themselves that have been denied by the stories that were given to them as children, and the stories that the media would like the public to believe about adoption. Using Howard Bath’s 3-pillars of Trauma-informed Care (2008) and the 7-step trauma-healing framework embedded in the Migrating Toward Wholeness© method of expressive writing to heal attendees will learn how the process of re-narrativizing for adoptees can be used to find clarity, understand the effects of trauma, promote personal growth that helps to shift internal narratives, and create healthy dialogue among families.

About Liz
Dr. Liz DeBetta earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies (Humanities & Culture) from Union Institute & University (certificates in Womens’ and Gender Studies/Creative Writing), an MA in English from the City University of NY (College of Staten Island), and a BA in Theatre/Speech from Wagner College. As an interdisciplinary scholar-artist-activist she’s committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through creative processes. She believes that stories are powerful change agents and when we can write them and share them we connect and heal.

Dr. DeBetta uses storytelling, performance, and narrative techniques to invite others to create space for empathy and begin healing individual and collective trauma connected to race, gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, and other intersections of identity that are misunderstood or misrepresented in dominant culture. This stems directly from her lived experience as an adoptee, survivor of gender based violence, and advocate for change by speaking truth to power using my own story. She is a proud member of Actor's Equity, SAG-AFTRA, Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and part of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.