And Three Made One: Psychoanalytic Work with a Three-Year-Old Girl in the Context of Reproductive Assisted Technology

ABSTRACT

The subjective experience of reproductive assisted technology (RAT) and the conceptual and clinical challenges it presents to contemporary child psychoanalytic practice is explored. Clinical material seeks to illustrate the impact of a mother’s relational past and her experience of infertility on the quality of her relationship with her young child and its impact on developmental progression. The role of the body as both organizer and container of experience is emphasized, as well as the role of the father and the parallel process between the mother-child dyad and the parental couple.