ABSTRACT
In the course of my professional life – first as a physician working in a London hospital where women patients only were treated, and later as a psychoanalyst treating both men and women – my infertile patients have made me aware of the deep emotional suffering they experience. In the past childless couples had two choices: either gradual conscious acceptance of their childless state – although in my clinical experience such an acceptance is never final – or alternatively adoption of someone else’s child. Readily available abortion drastically reduced the numbers of such children, and it was with great relief that patients have turned to use the enormous strides in the treatment of infertility that have gradually become available to them over the last ten years. These methods have brought both hope and disappointment to many couples, since the success rate is comparatively low.1
