WITHIN-FAMILY REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AS A SOLUTION TO CHILDLESSNESS DUE TO INFERTILITY - PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES AND INTERVENTIONS

Patients choosing new reproductive technologies benefit from psychological consultation as they face unforeseen emotional and interpersonal sequalae from these procedures. This paper focuses on those patients who choose family members or close friends (i.e., ''known donors'') to donate sperm or eggs or uteri in order to conceive and produce their babies. Medical family therapy offers these patients and families a framework from which to examine the biological, psychological, and interpersonal issues involved in these within-family solutions to childlessness due to infertility.