AN INFERTILITY PRIMER FOR FAMILY THERAPISTS .1. MEDICAL, SOCIAL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS

A seemingly ''self-evident truth'' in most people's lives is that one day they will have children. This universal, biopsychosocial assumptio n goes unchallenged until a couple faces infertility. Although the eff ects of such a challenge are profound, infertility is often treated as a nonevent-both within our society as a whole, and within the field o f family therapy in particular. To assist clinicians who work with thi s numerically increasing population, and the many others who have been affected by their encounter with infertility in the past, this articl e discusses the biological/medical, psychological, and social factors that shape the experience of infertility in our society.