ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis, long interested in infertility, and a valuable treatment for men and women suffering with this affliction, has also helped to create and support a myth of psychogenic infertility. Multiple causes of infertility exist across the physiological–psychological spectrum. In fact, analysis offers a unique opportunity to elaborate fully the complex realities and dilemmas faced by people and their therapists throughout the infertility experience. Half a century ago, analysis was the treatment of choice and indeed the last resort for infertile men and women. From 1951 to 1997, case reports and papers about "psychogenic infertility" have appeared in the psychoanalytic literature. Psychological conflicts involving infertility reach into the deepest layers of the individual psyche, invade the interpersonal space of the couple, and radiate into the cultural surround and its definition of family. The subjective experience of infertility is central to psychological treatment and need not be compounded with physiological causality or treatments.
