An Epistemological Perspective of Integrated Multidisciplinary Treatment When Dealing With Infertile Women With a Parenthood Goal: The Importance of Matterpsychic Perspective

Abstract

This article proposes a multidisciplinary work perspective on couples who undergo assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments, with particular attention paid to the treatment of women. The epistemological references underlying a vision of infertility and sterility that respect the psyche–soma unity of the person are illustrated: the biopsychosocial model and the psychoneuroimmunology and psychosomatic contemporary models of health and illness. Based on clinical experience in a private and institutional setting, different steps in the course of treatment are described with the related areas of psychological work: from the search for pregnancy to the choice of adhering to an ART treatment, to conception, up to delivery and beyond. The implications of the work are targeted at a better qualification of psychological interventions in this specific multidisciplinary area.

Fertility treatment, valuable life projects and social norms: In defence of defending (reproductive) preferences

“…Qualitative studies show that the experience of sub-fertility correlates with severe psychological distress and suffering. 34 This is sometimes articulated in terms of the emergence of a negative identity, characterised by absence and failure; 35 of the adverse effects on social relations that sub-fertility brings about; 36 of the arising of feelings such as extreme sadness, frustration, anxiety, stress and a sense of worthlessness; 37 and, mostly for women, with the emergence of feelings of self-blame. 38 Such psychological distress and suffering seems to be greater for women and to affect them in different ways than men, mediated by broader social norms.…”