Ethical dilemmas in reproductive techniques. Psychological reasoning.

Abstract

In the practice of the psychotherapy or the psychoanalysis the therapist has to handle the worries that distress a patient that is considering or deciding to submit himself/herself to reproductive techniques to resolve a problem of sterility. The psychotherapist has no right in primis to present to the patient ethical points of view or opinions that approve or less his actions or his possible choices, but handling the worries of his patient and, at times, facilitating his access to suitable sources of information relating possible psychological consequences of these techniques and his juridical and ethical implications is due to the psychoterapist. For this job, the mental health professional must have enough knowledge in these areas.

The clinical experience and the theoretical knowledge on childish psychological development make us discover possible pathological effects of the reproductive techniques in parents’ relationship. The effects regarding the interference in the conjugal relationship or the break-in of the physician and his team in the procreative trial are stressed.

Such situations strike again on the mental representation of the child that parents develop in their mind through the psychological pregnancy and, when child is already born, in the real representation of this during the three first years of his life. In the same way, it is observed that all this is reflected again on the psychological representation of the child himself, born through reproductive techniques.