Infertile: Acceptance with hypnosis and other solutions

Edwin Selij
July 02, 2018

You have a desire to have children, but it's taking a long time for you and your partner to conceive. After several tests, it becomes clear. You are infertile. Your world can fall apart because you still want to have a child, and you can come up with the craziest ideas to still get a child that is at least on paper from both of you (if the husband turns out to be infertile in this case).

In this blog, read more about what effects being infertile can have on your well-being and how hypnosis can restore it

Infertile

Infertility can happen to both men and women. In Europe, infertility affects 8 to 12% of couples who want to conceive. This is about 1 in 10 couples who suffer from fertility problems.

Generally, in half of the cases, the fertility problem lies solely with the woman, in 20-30% it lies solely with the man, and the remaining problems lie with problems with both the man and the woman.

Infertile man

Despite infertility being due to the woman in half the cases, it can also be due to the man. In that case, there are still many alternative treatment methods available. For example, if you have slow sperm, then artificial insemination may still be possible.

If that’s not possible either, it can lead to many psychological problems for men. For example, you might feel ashamed because your semen isn’t good enough. This can lead you to entertain extreme ideas about becoming a father without your loved ones being affected by it.

A search around the Internet already shows that men can think of one-night stands for their wives just so the environment does not realize that the child is not his. This is obviously an unhealthy way of thinking, because there are quite a few risks associated with unprotected sex with a stranger. Moreover, you know nothing about hereditary diseases of the unaware donor.

Never mind what to say if your child ever puts 1 and 1 together when he/she looks nothing like the father.

Infertile after a miscarriage

Miscarriage can have many effects on your uterus. For example, one consequence may be that you become infertile or then it turns out that you are actually infertile. In fact, many factors that contribute to infertility also contribute to having miscarriages, such as:

  • Age at which you want to have children (the older the less likely).
  • Overweight.
  • Smoking.
  • Drinking (too much) alcohol.
  • Existing medical problems.
  • Sex organ anatomical abnormalities.
  • Genetic disorders.

Secondary infertility

Secondary infertility occurs when you already have a child but then become infertile. This is especially a problem for couples who want to have a large family and find that this goal cannot be achieved.

Emotional effects infertility

Whatever form of infertility you have, it can trigger all kinds of emotions about yourself or your partner if they are infertile. In the beginning, infertility is also often seen as a threat. For example, what does it mean for your relationship? If you as a man or woman find out at a fairly young age that your partner is infertile, there is a chance that the relationship will be broken off in order to find a fertile partner. When this threat of the end of the relationship is over then often a process of loss actually occurs. A grieving process begins.

Infertility has at least the following effects according to much of the literature:

The emotions involved in infertility are:

Infertility often affects you more as a woman than as a man, even if it is the man who is infertile. Men do overcompensate for infertility more often than women.

To suffer less, hypnosis can help. In fact, there are quite a few social constructs about fertility. In Dutch culture, for example, it is quite normal to have 1 child and live the house, tree, beast life.

If this doesn’t work out, it can make you feel like a failure. Your purpose in life has suddenly become unclear.

The beliefs that most people have about themselves and how the world works and how you should get pregnant ultimately creates the consequences that infertility has. I will address some of the consequences and how hypnosis can help with them.

Identity and infertility

You have always seen yourself as a father or mother figure and would like to see this confirmed in a child of your own (or in a larger family). When this then proves impossible, your whole sense of who you are and what you do can be turned upside down. Fortunately, your identity is much more than just being a father or mother or the job you have. Hypnosis works a lot with the identity you have.

By reclaiming your identity, you automatically regain self-confidence and are better able to hold your place in the world. This can also be helpful for changing your beliefs about “how things should be” and letting go of those beliefs. Ultimately, no one is “normal,” and once you realize that, you can let go of societal norms and define your own way of doing things.

Effect on relationship

Infertility can have a major impact on your relationship. Do you come from a culture where having children is very important, as is the case in most religions? If so, you may feel a great deal of shame about being unable to have children. This can also lead you to become angry with your partner if you feel it is their fault.

If you do want to stay with your partner, it is important to continue to work on your relationship and go through the process of loss and grief together.

A great way to strengthen your relationship is to apply mindfulness. In this, you undertake activities together and try to stay completely in the here and now with your attention. You listen to your partner. You see your partner, maybe you even feel your partner and you smell your partner. You can do this while cooking food together or some other activity. By not being distracted by other things, such as your work or fantasies about how things could have been, you strengthen the bond with your partner that will help you get through this loss better.

Overcompensation

Another problem that infertility can create is overcompensation. If you fail at something in one part of your life, you want to excel in another part of your life. Men especially suffer from overcompensation.

This can manifest itself, for example, in going to work a lot to at least have a good career. Or by becoming a kind of casanova.

Hypnosis also helps with overcompensation by improving self-acceptance. You don't have to suddenly become super good at anything else. You're good enough the way you are. Hypnotic suggestions, for example, work to ensure that you actually have those beliefs, such as:

"I am good enough the way I am."

"I don't need to get better at any other part of my life."

"I get to relax."

"People accept me."

By repeating these kinds of suggestions daily, you can prevent infertility from turning you into a workaholic

Depression and infertility

Precisely because having children is a step in which biological factors and even evolutionary factors also come into play, you may suffer from feelings of depression if this fails you. After all, what is life without children?

Depression is often treated with medication and/or psychological treatment. Hypnosis can play a supportive role in this treatment. In fact, you generally receive cognitive behavioral therapy, and multiple studies have shown that hypnosis enhances cognitive behavioral therapy. As a result, you get rid of your depressive feelings faster.

Guilt and infertility

If your body does not cooperate with having children, you may become angry with your body and feel intense guilt toward your partner. This is very unfortunate because no one chooses to become infertile, so it is certainly not something to feel guilty about.

In fact, guilt has the function of keeping you from performing certain behaviors in the future. For example, if you have lied or stolen you get guilt so that you don't do it again in the future.

Being infertile is not something you do consciously. So it's super illogical to feel guilty about it. You also can't change it in the future.

A hypnotist can help you get rid of this guilt. Initially to find out why you are suffering from this guilt and secondly to help you realize that this guilt is not necessary for anything. There are several techniques for this.

Would you like to know how hypnosis can help you and others during difficult times? Then come to a workshop and check out the training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Sources:

https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-015-0032-1

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-0753-0_3

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2217/WHE.15.19