This second edition gives mental health professionals the tools they need to treat patients who suffer from infertility or pregnancy loss, as well as new guidance for processing their own reproductive traumas. Prospective parents who experience infertility or pregnancy loss deal with a host of physical and psychological consequences. For many individuals and couples experiencing reproductive trauma, their ideal future has fallen apart, leaving them bereft and hopeless. Author Janet Jaffe demonstrates how helping professionals can work with patients' reproductive stories to help them grieve, cope, and heal while underscoring how clinicians' own reproductive stories impact their lives and their therapeutic work. With updates in research and new, more diverse case examples, this edition has been expanded to offer a more holistic understanding of reproductive trauma, including coverage of LGBTQ+ parents and their unique needs and experiences. It also reviews advances in reproductive technology and their ethical implications-including cryopreservation, third-party reproduction, and genetic testing-as well as how social and cultural factors influence parents' reproductive stories.
Janet Jaffe, PhD, has a private practice in San Diego and is interested in issues of loss and bereavement related to miscarriage, infertility, and other reproductive trauma and its impact on individuals and couples. Dr. Jaffe is a co-founder and director of the Center for Reproductive Psychology in San Diego and is co-author of Unsung Lullabies, Understanding and Coping with Infertility. She has presented at conferences across the country on the psychology of the reproductive process, both to professional organizations and to the general public, and is an adjunct faculty member of the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University.
Introduction: The Past, Present, and Future of Reproductive Challenges and Opportunities Acknowledgements Part I. The Patient's Viewpoint Chapter 1. The Reproductive Story: Parents' Possible Selves and How Things Should Have Been Chapter 2. Developments in Reproductive Technology: Ethical Concerns and Emotional Constants Chapter 3. Patients' Reproductive Trauma Experiences: "Our World Is Falling Apart" Chapter 4. Grieving an Unborn Child: Pain and Hope Chapter 5. Helping Patients Cope With Reproductive Loss: Treatment Options Chapter 6. Who Is the Patient? Third-Party Reproduction and Adoption Chapter 7. Adjuncts to Reproductive Psychotherapy Chapter 8. From Reproductive Trauma to Growth: Healing and Change Part II. The Provider's Viewpoint Chapter 9. What Patients Want to Know About Reproductive Mental Health Providers Chapter 10. The Therapist's Reproductive Story Chapter 11. The Pregnant Therapist and the Reproductive Patient Chapter 12. Reproductive Therapist Self-Care: Taking Care of Ourselves While Taking Care of Others Epilogue: Giving Voice to Patients' and Therapists' Reproductive Stories References Index About the Author
