Psychoanalysis and reproductive medicine: Possible collaborations and undesirable traps

Abstract

Based on her experience as a collaborator psychoanalyst in two Reproduction Services, the author in this paper distinguishes three different orders of demands from physicians to psychoanalysts in relation to their activities in the context of treatments of human infertility: 1) approach of the unconscious causation of infertilities without detected organic causes; 2) aid in the construction of parenthood in cases where it is necessary the use of donors of semen, eggs or embryos or even replacement wombs; 3) help to the medical staff in making decisions in face of complex situations from a bioethical point of view, i.e., concerning demands involving the assembly of family arrangements that contradict what is socially accepted or naturally feasible. Each of these orders of demands includes a trap for the psychoanalyst. The approach of these traps is, along with the explanation of demand orders referred above, the purpose of the article.