Male Infertility: The Psychologic Issues

Abstract

If one looks at the popular media, the scientific journals, and some recent books, it is clear that we have rediscovered fatherhood. Fathers are important, and maybe more important than we thought, both in the family and in the lives of their children. Increasing scientific evidence indicates too that fathering has enormous effects on children in ways that we had not previously suspected, and also modifies tremendously the life of the men involved. We have only recently considered the psychologic aspects of infertility in men. This is partially because of our biases, partially because the psychological aspects of male infertility were not apparent much of the time, and partially because we did not have a scientific model for thinking about them. However, we now know that infertility is a traumatic interruption in the life of both women and men. It really should not come as any surprise that we can make that statement; we really should not even have to make it.