Psychological Infertility. Experiment "psychosomatics"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

When people hear the expression "psychological infertility", an image is most often drawn in their heads that facilitate the essence of the situation. It's one thing when a man or woman has some kind of pathology - you need to look for it, treat it, wait for the result, select and try something again (and God forbid you know that the pathology is incurable). And "psychological" is kind of simple - your wrong thoughts or attitudes that need to be changed and everything will fall into place. However, such an understanding of the issue more often leads to disappointment than to the real result. This path becomes especially difficult for our girls who have gone abroad. Because having received the maximum of modern medicine "treatment according to the protocol", but without becoming a mother, they can either accept or look for various alternative and experimental methods.

"Psychosomatics" in this case really becomes nothing more than an experiment. Because before we get what we want, we can break a single spear.

If earlier we did not know anything about psychosomatics, then filtering information will certainly be more difficult, and the first thing that the Internet will tell us in one way or another will be reduced to "metaphysics" - a kind of esoteric interpretation of a symptom. We will be told that the reason for this state is most likely fear (!?) And resistance to any intra-clan relationships, lack of trust in the world and natural processes, etc. acceptance. The age-old question "will it become sweeter in your mouth if you talk about halva all the time"? Sometimes it will. If we discard the element of the inexplicable placebo effect, in practice there are often such cases that we call "situational" psychosomatics.

For the first time, faced with the fact that pregnancy has not occurred, the expectant mother begins to worry (read to worry). Then the body enters a state of expectation of war. Surveys begin, not always pleasant manipulations, financial costs, a premonition of negativity, as a result, general anxiety increases (with each unsuccessful attempt, anxiety becomes more and more). Inevitably, the hormonal background changes, a general tension of all systems appears, the immune system begins to actively respond to all unusual and new processes, etc. Even after it becomes known that both partners are healthy and can have children, this cocktail will not dissolve immediately. Then time and yoga or meditation, any method of relaxation and regaining self-confidence create a "miracle" and the experiment can be considered a success. Anxiety recedes and the stimulated organism gives a result. But in real practice there are only a few girls with similar problems. Others have no choice but to experiment further.

The more we learn and understand, the sooner we will reach the point that if there is a psychological component in our problem, then it is unlikely that it lies on the surface and one of the most effective experiments can be considered further work with a psychologist. There is no mysticism here. Until we faced the problem of infertility, we never particularly thought about our attitude to a number of aspects of motherhood. But the psychologist asks specific questions and cleverly bypasses the defense mechanisms of our psyche, which allows us to cash out a number of psychological conflicts-inconsistencies to which we cannot answer unequivocally. Unconsciously, we doubt and choose, and our body also takes a reproductive pause. Gynecologists are well aware of this phenomenon against a background of severe stress, when menstruation stops and a woman cannot have children in a given period. Psychologists are more likely to work with chronic stress, when the problem is not particularly acute, but constant. So the body gets used to ignoring it and seems to be working one hundred percent, while some of the functions remain suppressed, which leads to psychological infertility. "Everything seems to be fine, but something is constantly missing."

Situations that do not clearly deplete our resource can be different.

Sometimes we we are afraid of the birth itself - the psychologist talks about the "power" of female physiology at all stages of motherhood or helps to understand the specific fears of the expectant mother and the fear recedes (this is not a tribute to the time, believe me, many of my 10 year old son's contemporaries are sure that childbirth is evil, and the child is torment).

We are afraid that there will be something wrong with the baby - but all fears are dispelled when they are cashed and options for resolving a particular situation are discussed.

If our memory holds some a traumatic history associated with pregnancy, childbirth or children - the psychologist has a number of methods to discuss "this" our attitude to the situation changed.

We are surprised when a reason is associated with attitude towards our body, potential loss of attractiveness and our perception of ourselves, but here, too, the psychologist gives feedback, which helps to prioritize and get what is needed.

We discuss and find resources when it turns out that pregnancy is blocked by fear insolvency, both material and psychological.

We weigh the pros and cons when a problem comes to the surface personal boundaries, the need to "lose yourself", work, to be socially isolated - we find compromises and self-healing techniques, etc.

It often happens that at some point we have doubted that is the man is next to us. The unpleasant thought was driven away, but the "sediment" remained, continuing to breed doubts unconsciously in each new word, gesture and behavior, the brain is looking more and more for a catch - this is also available for analysis and either working out real inconsistencies, or letting go of illusions.

In general, one way or another, if our contact with a psychologist takes place, the probability is high that in a year and a half the situation will be resolved in a positive way. However, it is also important to note that such work does not always bring results. As already noted, psychosomatics is not magic, where behind one wrong thought is another right one. Psychosomatic dysfunction often appears where we cannot make a choice in favor of one correct solution. In fact, in psychotherapy of psychological infertility, there are often dead-end situations, as it were. It is difficult to combine them into any of the classifications, because they are all individual, but I will give a few examples.

Please note that everything that was described above is quite real and objective experiences about the birth of a child. Fear of pain, fear of not coping and losing, fear of qualitative changes, fear of moving to a new step and turning back the whole life, fear of responsibility and helplessness - it is absolutely natural … When we talk it over with a psychologist, he helps to see new information, ways of solving, understand himself and find a personal resource, etc. Unconsciously, the expectant mother understands that there is much more knowledge and experience than could be imagined, issues can be solved, she is not alone, she will cope, she will always be helped, she will gain, etc. It helps to let go of the situation.

However, imagine the circumstances when a woman does not have such experiences. Perhaps she even already worked with a psychologist - she is absolutely ready, confident in herself, in a partner, in her body and in her business, has no "any" traumatic experience … But there is still no child, and even IVF is not effective (despite the fact that visible pathologies is still not observed). And here, experimentally, we come to the point that it was necessary to work here not with infertility, but with the personality itself. Worldview and principles, relationships with other people, character traits and life scenarios - all this became the reason that we met and in such work we aim not to give birth to a baby, but to make qualitative changes, and psychotherapy is no longer possible here.

Sometimes character and what was noted with it leads to the fact that conception turns into an end in itself. A woman is offended not so much by the fact that the child is not in her comfortable life, but by the fact that she "could not", that the reason is in her. Yoga for conception, a relaxation complex, a nutritional program, the best reproductive specialists and psychologists - all do not work. But there can be no question of any adoption or surrogacy, because this is "her fight". Only herself, to the bitter end … and then the technologies will change. What is this story about and what can we do about it?

Sometimes the situation can be surprisingly difficult due to the perceived irrationality. Yes, in general, everything is fine, but the desire to re-educate the husband (to realize responsibility, take an active part, be included in the family) or the mother-in-law (to deprive the grandchildren in order to answer for the wrongs inflicted earlier), belief in ideality and perfection does not make it possible to refuse destruction … But what we present and demand from others is a drop in the ocean in comparison with what framework we set for ourselves. And then what if the client herself understands the complexity of the cause, but cannot abandon the attitudes and principles that she has followed all her life?

Sometimes in a friendly, beautiful family, everything is so good that the partners consider themselves "family". Even more than a man and a woman, they don’t need sex either because they live in perfect harmony, they understand each other perfectly, they are so comfortable together that it’s just some kind of miracle that they have each other. Either they "live like brother and sister," or "she replaces his mother, and he replaces her father." One way or another, metaphorically, we understand that in real life, children are not born of parents or brothers. But besides the family-role confusion, there is also sex-role confusion, when the husband is a "householder" and the wife is a "wall, support and director", and since we understand that "children do not give birth to men", we can expect a child here for a very long time. But what to do when, by changing roles, we change the family way of life, on which it is quite possible that the union only holds? Just say "become an adult / or finally become a man / or be more feminine", but who will be responsible for the result, if new roles are only breaking and destruction?

Sometimes addictive behavior and personal failure, fear of loneliness lead to the fact that the manipulation of conception turns into a tool for retaining a partner or obtaining any benefit, including material / prolonged. Instead of becoming an independent and self-confident, wealthy and respected woman, the girl uses her husband's family. And you can try to conceive a child in any way convenient for her, but inconsistency and dependence will haunt her and interfere in any of the further processes.

Or maybe her husband cheated on her and once their relatives "reconciled" them, but the lost trust cannot be returned, and the life is comfortable and well-organized. What to do now? And what if they are far from 30? Or maybe they met and fell in love, and then the feelings went away, but they live out of habit like two old men? Devoted, faithful, grateful, have gone through a lot together and do not even represent any other partner next to them … But "metaphorical old men" also cannot have children, what to do then?

There are situations when clients resent the movement of the Child Free. In the course of psychotherapy, it turns out that if it were not for the parents, and not for the pressure of society, they would gladly join and support him. Whether this reluctance is true or not is unknown. It so happens that women who are categorically against children come to therapy after a few years and have slightly different priorities and opportunities."Now it seems that I am ready for one hundred percent, but only after years I realize why I was not really ready." Therefore, everything is individual.

But the main thing is that behind each such story there is a strong, fearless, but very fragile exhausted toiler, who constantly owes something to someone and is not like that in something. And the absence of a child may well be a kind of protest to declare the right to be what she wants to be now, to dispose of her body and life, regardless of all the stereotypes and reasoning about the right thing. After reading the above, someone probably had an idea about what kind of women are not like that, while only the woman herself, having learned about the background of what is happening, decides whether it is right for her or not. And no one but her. Actually, we cannot set the presence of a child as the goal of such psychotherapy. In cases similar to those described, and in many others that I have not described from practice, the goal of psychotherapy is to understand oneself and accept, qualitative changes do not occur otherwise. And then the child will be or not, the woman will decide without our help, and her body will meet her halfway when she becomes in harmony with herself and there is no longer a need to experiment.