Belonging: A Guided Workbook for Adult Adoptees | By Melissa LaCour, LPC
A Self-Guided Therapeutic Workbook for Adoptee Identity, Grief, & Attachment
Belonging: A Guided Journey Through Adoption Wounds & Wisdom is a therapeutic workbook for adult adoptees who are ready to do the real work — on identity, grief, shame, intimacy, and everything in between.
Who Can Benefit from Belonging?
Adult Adoptees Seeking Self-Guided Healing
Therapists & Adoption-Competent Clinicians
Support Groups & Adoption Community Networks
Inside Belonging: Key Themes & Guided Reflection Frameworks
Nine chapters of honest, grounded work — covering the seven core emotional issues that shape the adoptee experience, plus two integration chapters that help you bring it all together.
Navigating the "Both/And" of Gratitude & Grief
Unpacking the 7 Core Issues in Adoption
Processing Relational Patterns & Attachment Triggers
Releasing Performative Belonging & Defining Self-Identity
Loss · Rejection · Guilt & Shame · Grief · Identity · Intimacy · Control
The Seven Core Issues of Adoption — What We’ll Explore Together
These aren't just themes. They're the threads that run through every adoptee's story — often unnamed, often misunderstood, almost always present. This workbook gives them language, space, and room to heal.
Written from the inside out
I'm Melissa LaCour — a Licensed Professional Counselor based in Louisiana, and an adoptee.
I didn't write this workbook from a clinical distance. I wrote it because I know what it feels like to carry these questions without a place to put them. I know what it feels like to grieve something others think you should be grateful for, to long for connection while quietly keeping people at arm's length, to wonder who you would have been in a different story.
This workbook is the resource I wished I'd had. I hope it becomes something you return to again and again — not just once, but across every season of your life when this part of your story calls you back.
Belonging — A Guided Journal for Adult Adoptees
Purchase Options
Digital PDF — $24.99
Instant download. Print at home or use on any supported device. Don’t wait. Start today.
Print Edition — $34
A physical copy delivered to your door. Same complete workbook, beautifully printed.
You don’t have to keep carrying this alone.
This workbook won't resolve everything. But it will give you something that might be even more valuable: language for what you've been living, space to finally say it, and the slow, steady reassurance that what you feel makes complete sense. You belong here.
The Belonging Series: Youth Companion Editions (Coming Late 2026)
Frequently Asked Questions About the Belonging Workbook
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No. Belonging is a self-guided educational and reflective workbook designed for personal growth, journaling, and self-discovery. While it serves as a powerful standalone tool or companion to individual therapy, it is not a substitute for clinical mental health counseling.
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Yes. Belonging was written to honor the diverse experiences across the entire adoption constellation, including domestic, international, foster care, and transracial adoptions. The guided prompts focus on universal adoption dynamics such as identity, loss, rootlessness, and belonging.
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Yes. Therapists, counselors, and adoption support group leaders frequently use Belonging as a supplemental clinical resource to help clients process adoption dynamics between therapy sessions.