What does it mean to be a donor offspring? The identity experiences of adults conceived by donor insemination and the implications for counselling and therapy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the absence of research with adult donor offspring, this study begins to bridge that gap by asking individuals about their experiences as donor offspring and considering the implications for psychotherapeutic and counselling practice. Sixteen participants (13 male, three female, age range 26-55 years) recruited through donor insemination support networks in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, were sent semi-structured questionnaires by E-mail and post. Using identity process theory as a framework for understanding participants' accounts, the data were qualitatively analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Participants consistently reported mistrust within the family, negative distinctiveness, lack of genetic continuity, frustration in being thwarted in the search for their biological fathers and a need to talk to a significant other (i.e. someone who would understand). These experiences could be postulated as being indicative of a struggle to assimilate, accommodate and evaluate information about their new identities as donor offspring. Psychotherapists and counsellors need to be aware of these identity issues if they are to meet the needs of donor offspring within therapeutic practice.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".