Beyond Conception: Recovering the Creative Couple after Infertility

Abstract

The experience of infertility and of the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) to produce a baby has been shown to have a strong negative impact on the psychological functioning of individuals and couples. It is proposed that this negative relation is mediated for couples by the impact these experiences may have on a couple's sense of contact with an internal object known as the ‘creative couple’. The creative couple is both an internal object shared by the couple and a fundamental aspect of the couple's containing function. Two cases of breakdown in couple functioning following infertility and ART are presented. Methods for repair of the couple's functioning through enhancing and modifying their relationship to the creative couple are discussed.