An Interview in Preconception
with Helen Adrienne, LCSW, BCD
by Gwen Morrison
Copyright © www.preconception.com, September 21, 2003
Infertility can be an emotional disaster. It drains people of the resources needed to handle the reality that conception is going to be a challenge – if it happens at all. This devastating reality leaves many people with feelings of anger and resentment, as well as profound feelings of grief.
The Mind/Body Connection
Fortunately, there are more options now for infertile couples than ever before. Although it is vital to research the latest in medical intervention for infertility, it is also equally important for couples to examine the emotional aspects of infertility.
Helen Adrienne, LCSW, BCD, is located in New York City, New York, providing psychotherapy for people struggling with gynecological and reproductive issues. “Psychotherapy can be many things,” she says. “In general, it is a process that allows us to understand our behavior and make changes so that we can feel happier and calmer. In its simplest form, psychotherapy creates the opportunity for us to lay out our problems and issues and sort through our choices in a systematic way.”
Adrienne launched her practice in 1979, devoting herself to helping others resolve emotional struggles that were triggered by physical conditions. She explains that there are many techniques that facilitate working through obstacles and fears. Through techniques like psychotherapy or hypnosis, couples are able to use their minds to teach their brains new approaches in the areas that are consuming them.
With infertility, the reality of the issue presses on a couple every 28 days, causing emotions to be very intense. If these strong emotions are left unacknowledged, they will only worsen.
The Wounds Run Deep
“People struggling with infertility feel as if insults are added to injury,” Adrienne says. “They already feel vulnerable. To make matters worse, a social protocol which would address infertility is lacking in the fertile world. Without a prescription for behavior, the population at large can, in the course of normal interaction, easily wound or offend.”
Couples who are struggling with infertility are bombarded with how easy it is for some people to conceive, and that adds discouragement to the list of emotions surrounding them. When you include the intrusive procedures, fertility drugs and watching your life under a microscope, it’s no wonder it becomes an emotional roller coaster. In many cases, couples end up turning their raw emotions on each other.
“Bad feelings can escalate,” Adrienne says. “Our individual coping styles don’t always match.” When this happens, the real issues get lost. “Infertility is both a personal crisis and a couple crisis. It has the potential to destabilize a marriage or even wrench it apart.”
Adrienne points out that with crisis comes an opportunity to step back, get your bearings and choose a direction. A crisis in a marriage is often an opportunity in disguise. “Stresses are catalysts which make us become more of who we already are,” she says. “What are minor annoyances in easier times become more obvious in times of stress.”
Adrienne explains that if the real issues are exposed, understood and dealt with, couples can find great relief.
Unique Therapy
“There is no one kind of therapy,” Adrienne says. “It depends on what the person is asking for, which sometimes evolves into something entirely different.”
She remembers cases where infertility therapy morphed into couple’s therapy and even divorce therapy. “Often women need help dealing with the enormous anxiety attendant to the infertility diagnosis or treatment,” she says. “There is so much that gets thrown into high relief as a result of the infertility experience. Part of my job is figuring out what the woman or couple are experiencing, prioritize and then distill the treatment down to bite-sized pieces.”
Adrienne is prepared to do whatever kind of therapy makes sense for each person, including providing mind/body support groups. “These groups are designed to help people dealing with such an abundance of stress ‘come in for a landing,’” she says.
Her experience over 20 years ago as a gynecological and obstetric patient had a huge impact. “One aspect of many that heightened my awareness of the mind/body connection came as a result of a 4th-month miscarriage,” she recalls. “When I lost the baby, my emotional upset altered my menstrual cycle from 30 days to 60 so that it took me six months to conceive again.”
Through her personalized therapy, Adrienne helps patients sift through the emotional side of infertility. She feels strongly that hypnosis as one kind of therapy is a wonderful way to arrive at a place where mind and body meet. Traditional “talk therapy” is a way for patients to interact with each other, opening up a door to building confidence.
“Poor self-esteem can also prevent the resolution of infertility,” she says. “Although one of my clients was a high-powered executive herself, for many years she could not find the inner strength to stand up to her husband’s refusal to investigate their infertility medically. Ten years had gone by without a conception. Her underlying desire to be a mother wilted in the face of his stubbornness. Her fear of confronting the issue with her husband meant that respect for her own feelings needed to be suppressed.”
Adrienne explains that three years later, the woman has discovered that although it has been painful for her to give up her quest for motherhood, she likes her life. “She has gradually learned to successfully stand up to her husband’s rigidity and has taught him what her other important needs are in the marriage,” Adrienne says.
Another client achieved a pregnancy by chipping away at the brick and mortar wall that obstructed her dream of becoming a mother.
“She had felt intuitively that there was some explanation for her failure to conceive, even though there was no medical diagnosis,” Adrienne says. “When she asked her doctor if the reason could be emotional, he said ‘no’. That seemed to be the end of that. But when her confidence in her original intuition grew during our first session, she asked me the same question. My ensuing line of questioning led us to the facts of her life.”
What Adrienne discovered was that the woman had urinary tract problems her entire life, resulting in ongoing bedwetting. The problem was diagnosed and corrected at the age of 15. However, the emotional damage had already been done. It seemed that the woman’s mother had been very harsh and critical. The woman had years of psychic pain that was subconsciously connected to her notion of the mother-daughter relationship.
“When her feelings were validated and her fears about repeating this pattern allayed, she conceived,” Adrienne says. “The therapy setting can be used to gain greater insight in the ‘hidden agenda,’ which can hinder the resolution of the infertility crisis and can prove destructive to the marital relationship.”
Adrienne’s emphasis on mind/body therapy has helped countless patients come to a better understanding of themselves, allowing them to move forward. “Sometimes we forget that nature’s power can have a larger meaning on a personal level,” she says. “Like it or not, infertility is a life crisis.”
For information on Mind-Body Stress Reduction Groups for infertility, click here.
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