District Meeting | Fertility Counseling: What Clinical Social Workers Need to Know About Reproductive Loss and Therapy

The field of fertility counseling is a rapidly growing specialty area in psychotherapy. Every client who enters therapy has a reproductive story and many clinicians are finding more patients presenting with reproductive issues and a complex history of reproductive loss. Whether infertility is in one’s history, occurs during the course of therapy, or is a presenting problem, clinical social workers need to understand challenges faced by clients who navigate the world of medically assisted reproduction. Since every clinician also carries their own reproductive story into the work, it is important to be aware of countertransference issues that may arise. This presentation will focus on what clinical social workers need to know about working with clients with fertility issues, ways to provide effective support working through the trauma of reproductive loss, and how to avoid potential pitfalls in countertransference.