How Therapists Should Work with Infertile Couples: A Literature Review

Abstract

In this study, we reviewed recent couple and family therapy literature on infertility, attending to the research methods, units of focus, sources of participants, main subjects, theories referenced, and clinical recommendations in each article. We reviewed articles published in 12 couple and family therapy journals between 2000 and 2016. Of these, 19 articles had a focus on infertility. We summarized these articles’ specific clinical recommendations for working with infertile couples. The findings suggest that there is a significant lack of couple and family therapy literature on infertility, and that couple therapists would benefit from more scholarly attention to the topic.

Keywords:

• infertility
• integrated healthcare
• literature review
• social norms

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).