This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen
The Psychological Impact of Pregnancy Loss and Infertility
- Impacts on the individual and the couple
- Tools to validate invisible grief
- Basics of the medical diagnosis of infertility
- Assisted reproductive technology decisions clients face
- Key differences between generalists and fertility counselors
- Case study
What’s Attachment Got to Do With It?
Assessment Tools to Understand Reproductive Trauma
- Intake strategies for obtaining reproductive information
- Essential questions to understand clients’ reproductive journey and narrative
- Top tips for evaluating couples’ relationship dynamics and communication styles
- How to take an effective attachment history with individuals and couples
- Attachment and psychological parenthood basics
- What happens to attachment when there is no baby
- Common couples issues - intimacy, finance, and more
- When to be concerned – mental health symptoms after loss and infertility
- Case study
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as a Roadmap
Interventions for Connection, Repair, and Accessibility
- Theoretical and scientific foundation for using EFT in pregnancy loss and infertility
- EFT with couples and Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) with individuals
- The C.A.R.E. model – create a safe haven alliance with individuals and couples
- Case conceptualization using EFT/EFIT
- Key interventions to bring core emotions alive in therapy sessions
- Strategies to decrease emotional reactivity and lessen numbing
- Top techniques to increase emotional vulnerability and widen window of tolerance
- How to choreograph corrective emotional experiences with individuals and couples
- Strategies to revise how clients see themselves and each other
- Key markers of client change and how to monitor them
- Grief management plans for subsequent attempts to conceive, triggers, and anniversaries
- Case study
Clinical Considerations
- Decision-making around course of treatment – short- or long-term
- Countertransference and family building
- Self-care and burnout prevention tips
- How to identify and reduce therapist bias regarding assisted reproductive technology
- ASRM Practice Committee reproductive counselor guidelines
- Cultural competency to creative inclusivity for all families
- Limitations of the research and potential risks






