3.   In my work in the field of the psychopathology of adoption, I have considered at length the contribution of a society's laws respecting open and closed adoption records as a contributing factor to the well-being of the adopted child. I am familiar with the literature in this field.

4.   I have reviewed in respect of this application the notice of application, the affidavit of the applicant sworn on June 3, 2004 and excerpts from the Ontario Child and Family Services Act and the Vital Statistics Act respecting adoption.

The Psychology of Child Development

5.   The starting premise of child development psychology is the object relations theory. Put in other words, a child does not develop in isolation but in relation to other people and objects in its environment. Modern psychological thought respecting children considers development to commence in the womb prior to birth.

6.   Drawing from the work of experts studying child development through the twentieth century, including Alice Miller, John Bowlby, Margaret Mahler and D.W. Winnicott, the following principles emerge:

    (a)     birth is a culmination of an extraordinary 40-week developmental process rather
              than a single event;

    (b)     newborn human infants have all of their senses and make use of them immediately;