EMOTIONAL FACTORS IN THE SUCCESS OF CONTRACEPTION

Abstract

This study based on a series of interviews at a family planning clinic in New Haven Connecticut was stimulated by the apparent conflict between reports of the nearly perfect conception control obtainable with birth control pills and IUDs and the high rejection rate of such methods by the clientele of birth control clinics. The article shows the importance of womens and mens emotions and attitudes to the success or failure of birth control and suggests guidelines for evaluating whether or not a woman will use fertility control successfully. Those interviewed were chiefly of lower and lower middle class Negro white and Puerto Rican women. The article focuses on the conscious and subconscious attitudes toward fertility in women who on the fact of it desire birth control toward contraception are: 1) the woman who is satisfied having had several children and feels finished with the job; 2) the woman who has an active and enjoyable sexual relationship and is in no hurry to have children or her next child; 3) the woman who fears pregnancy for realistic somatic or neurotic reasons; 4) the neurotic woman who fears childbirth; 5) the woman with character neurosis who cannot commit herself and who fears the dependency of a child; 6) the woman who would rather be a man and unfettered and certain homosexuals. Negative reactions to birth control may be seen in: 1) the woman with a marginal sexual adjustment who may consider it sinful to have intercourse for pleasure alone; 2) the woman who has a special investment in pregnancy as a creative process either for competitive reasons or a need to prove herself; 3) the woman who starts contraception only for financial reasons or to please a husband who does not want children; 4) the woman to whom having children is the only true meaning of life and who gets all her emotional satisfaction from babies and young children; 5) the lonely depressive deprived woman who wants a child to satisfy her own emptiness.