Gémellité et Procréation Médicalement Assistée : quels enjeux psychiques ?

Abstract

Purpose of the studyThis study questions the psychic mechanisms which underline the link between the parents and their twins who were born from medical assisted reproduction. This article examines the way that the double fantasy and the infertility trauma interact with the parental psyche. It also determines the part that these fantasies takes in the psychic and relational development of the twins. Patients and methodsThis text presents the analysis of clinical data (supported on psychoanalytic fundamentals) gathered from a family seen in a psychopathic clinical study. The family is composed of two 12-year-old female dizygotic twins who were born by in vitro fertilization (IVF). The data collection is done by semi-directional interviews and then by group discussions as well as projective tests: genogram and a drawing of the family. Results and conclusionsThe infertility trauma combined with the anxiety caused by the double fantasy leads to an altered representation of the filiation link and the fraternal link for the twins which is transmitted by these parents. The filiation link seems to be divided, dependent on only one line which complicates the representation of fraternal link possibilities. Once these projective representations are projected, these representations bring the twins to waive, at least in part, their fraternal link and to consider themselves as two different person of two separate lines, two foreigners without any rivalry and complicity in this family unit.