Fertility
Fertility and Conception
Undergoing fertility treatment is an intensely stressful times in a couple’s life. Coping with the physical, psychological and financial stress of treatment along with the uncertainty of the outcome can be difficult for others to understand. Likewise, the devastation of early pregnancy loss and recurrent miscarriage can be painful beyond words yet this is a grieving process that many couples do in private because of the unwritten 12 week rule. In a somewhat cruel cycle, stress can in turn affect fertility because the body at times of acute stress enters fight/flight mode where functions other than those required for immediate survival are suspended. This cycle highlights the importance of working on stress management in order to restore ‘normal’ bodily functioning.
Fertility and Clinical Psychology (Sophie Burgess)
Meeting with a Clinical Psychologist can be helpful in the use of evidence based stress reduction techniques, thereby helping you along your fertility journey. In addition, psychological therapy provides a confidential space to explore your concerns, which can be a highly therapeutic experience helping you to feel heard, understood and validated. These sessions can be undertaken individually or as a couple (please contact me to discuss this further). Finally, for those couples for whom further treatment is not an option, psychological intervention can be vital in helping you to work through the bereavement process and support you (when the time is right) to live life alongside the grief you are feeling.
Undergoing fertility treatment is an intensely stressful times in a couple’s life. Coping with the physical, psychological and financial stress of treatment along with the uncertainty of the outcome can be difficult for others to understand. Likewise, the devastation of early pregnancy loss and recurrent miscarriage can be painful beyond words yet this is a grieving process that many couples do in private because of the unwritten 12 week rule. In a somewhat cruel cycle, stress can in turn affect fertility because the body at times of acute stress enters fight/flight mode where functions other than those required for immediate survival are suspended. This cycle highlights the importance of working on stress management in order to restore ‘normal’ bodily functioning.
Fertility and Clinical Psychology (Sophie Burgess)
Meeting with a Clinical Psychologist can be helpful in the use of evidence based stress reduction techniques, thereby helping you along your fertility journey. In addition, psychological therapy provides a confidential space to explore your concerns, which can be a highly therapeutic experience helping you to feel heard, understood and validated. These sessions can be undertaken individually or as a couple (please contact me to discuss this further). Finally, for those couples for whom further treatment is not an option, psychological intervention can be vital in helping you to work through the bereavement process and support you (when the time is right) to live life alongside the grief you are feeling.