Book of the Month - February 2016 [The Jonathan Letters]

‘The Jonathon Letters:  One family’s use of support as they took in and fell in love with a troubled child’ by Michael Trout and Lori Thomas [£17.50]

I discovered this wonderful book in 2005, when it was first published, and then I lost it/lent it and forgot just how great and easy to read it is!  So, to have a new copy and to be asked by CairnsMoir Connections to review it is a treat. 

The book gathers together an exchange of letters in the USA between a foster/adoptive mum and birth parent (Lori Thomas) and a specialised clinician (Michael Trout) who lives far away from her.  Their common interest: the struggle between a very troubled four year old, Jonathan (with a diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder), who is certain he cannot be loved and the family with whom he is placed who are determined to love him.  

In the introduction Michael Trout offers the reader Marcy Axness’s (Axness,  1999, personal communication with Michael Trout) definition of RAD, namely NORMAL: Natural Organismic Response to Massive Abandonment and Loss  - to me, this makes so much sense!  Michael Trout  describes how he is, initially reluctantly,  ‘captured’ into communicating with Lori Thomas as part of her support network, and, likewise, the reader is captured into reading this book of their communications with each other.  

As the emails unfold the reader goes on a journey with them into the world of Jonathan where the things he so desperately needs (love, empathy, play, acceptance, boundaries) he is also terrified of.  As Michael emails to Lori ‘So he will find every sore in the family – including those you didn’t even know you had – and pick at then quietly (alright, sometimes not so quietly) until they bleed. Then he will rejoice and pick at the scab.  He must make every member of the family feel as he did/does’.

The reader will recognise the myriad of distressed and oppositional behaviours that Jonathan ‘throws’ at Lori and her family. Interwoven into the emails evolves an understanding and explanations of why Jonathan feels and behaves as he does alongside many helpful parenting strategies and interventions, and resources – books and DVD’s – that Lori finds helpful.  

‘The Jonathan Letters’ is sounding like a weighty, serious read – indeed it is, and it is also full of hope and humour, for example, Lori pondering why Jonathan is terrified of flies and creepy, crawlies but would happily go and greet a hippo that just happened to wander up the garden path!

The central importance of a network of support for Lori and her family both personal (extended family, friends, community, her faith) and professional support (a therapist, Michael Trout, social worker) is clear.    

I think this is a book that foster and kinship carers, adoptive parents and professionals (residential staff and all who support children who have been harmed in their birth families and through multiple transitions) will find informative, challenging and enjoyable.  

As Dan Hughes says in his review of ‘The Jonathan Letters’, ‘This journal between Michael and Lori is a joy to read.  It is real, full of meaning, emotion, hope, fear and doubt.  It would certainly give other parents a feeling of not being alone......’
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Review by: Edwina Grant, SAIA Chair of the Board of Trustees

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