Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction, and Psychoanalysis

Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction, and Psychoanalysis reflects on contemporary views on pregnancy, while offering guidance on how to work with women and couples experiencing infertility as well as the unique issues raised by having a child through assisted reproduction technologies.

Comprised of chapters written by eminent analysts working with infertile couples and women, and parents who have a child born from assisted reproduction, this book offers insightful ways to better understand the challenges these patients undertake and the various issues this might bring into the analytic room. The contributors examine the myriad psychic problems subjects are confronted with which could impact their ability to bond with children born through ART: the mourning processes infertility entails, the identification with the fertile parental couple, the unconscious representation of origin, the representation of the primal scene, and the process of symbolic affiliation. They consider the working-through these processes necessitate in order to enable filiation and healthy parenting, and give invaluable tools to the analyst to enable the promotion of psychological growth. Throughout, the chapters address the emotions that infertility summons in which both patient and analyst find a spectrum of unconscious phantasies and anxieties.

This book is an essential read for psychoanalysts and other professionals working in the field of ART, as well as those interested in motherhood and its vicissitudes and intersection with psychoanalysis.

Renata Viola Vives is a psychoanalyst for children, adolescents, and adults and a COWAP Latin American representative. She has worked in the field of assisted reproduction for 15 years.

Ana Teresa Vale is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst living and working in Lisbon. Currently COWAP European representative, she is also part of the editorial board of the Portuguese Psychoanalytic Journal.