In a detailed case study, Mitson explores the complexity of relational difficulties in adoption, particularly around secrecy of the adoptee's history. She provides welcome details of her own bewildering kaleidoscope of rapidly changing feelings that she experienced in relating with her young client, especially in relation to trying to understand the secretive aspects of her client's sexuality. She shows that intolerable feelings of rejection and loss associated with the adoption of her client need to be acknowledged and integrated if he is to achieve a coherent sense of self.