Nr 16.  2007 sid. 119–136

 
Analytically Accompanied In Vitro Fertilization
– An Antidote To Trauma

Ute Auhagen-Stephanos

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Ute Auhagen-Stephanos är psykiatriker och psykoanalytiker verksam i Neu-Ulm, Tyskland. Hon har speciellt intresserat sig för infertilitetsproblematik hos kvinnor och psykologiska förklaringsmodeller bakom svårigheterna. Utifrån ett psykoanalytiskt perspektiv skriver hon om assisterad befruktning och hur kvinnan och det väntande barnet påverkas.

The modern wonder of technological medicine is not only a blessing but also the source of pain and suffering. No body part, no orifice lies outside of the doctors’ control or manipulation. Contemporary medicine is increasingly developing into a field for “making”, of applying technology to people, without considering its effect. Little interest in the person, the whole ‘being’ – body, spirit and psyche – is taken into account. This is especially relevant for assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Such a name is misleading, for it is not simply an assisted but rather a technically controlled process, the aim of which is the product child. It reduces the human being as subject to a technical object; moreover an incomplete object, the focus of which is the reproductive system with genitalia ceasing to be a space of passion. Reproductive medicine involves the separation of body and soul. As long as these gynaecologists only offer their technical skills, they will continue to encourage women to shut out their feelings and pro-vide no space for them as people. For, instead of engaging in a meaningful conversation at the first meeting, in which the woman and her individual history is the focus, hormones are prescribed and medical procedures undertaken.

Without doubt, such manipulations, especially of the female reproductive area, cause traumas, the nature and effects of which I would like to discuss here. According to Haynal (1989), the term ‘trauma’ is a conceptual bridge

“which unites the external reality, the biographical events with all their effects on the inner world of the individual, their influence on subconscious expectations and on the crystallisation of fantasies and the increasing power of these fantasies”.

The extent of the resulting trauma depends on subjective experience, which in itself is influenced by psychological development and the strength of ‘ego-functions’, resistance mechanisms, frustration-tolerance level and the existence of thematically related fantasies, along with already existing former traumas.

Referring to Haynal’s definition of trauma, I will, in this article attempt to examine its various aspects in relation to in-vitro-fertilisation (IVF), the most common of the reproductive method.

I will focus on

1. the external reality of IVF

2. the effects on the inner world, i.e. the relation of material and psychological reality

3. biographical events

4. the relation of trauma and object relationships and

5. in conclusion, I will demonstrate the alleviating influence of psychoanalysis accompanying this technological inter-vention.

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2011-10-29

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