Working With Infertility Patients Through a Psychoanalytic Lens

Alumni Association Event Open to the Public

Doors Open at 6:30 PM

While addressing behavioral needs and surface-level fears and anxieties is essential in helping patients who struggle with infertility, it is also important that we help patients process their deeper unconscious (and often conflicting) feelings around treatment, failure, loss, inadequacy, and successful pregnancy. This presentation will address (i) the role of unconscious conflicts in the mental health issues of infertility patients; (ii) the effects of infertility, assisted reproductive technology (ART), and loss on the psyche; and (iii) transference and countertransference experiences in the treatment of infertility patients. Theory will be illustrated with case material.

Golzar Selbe Naghshineh, MS, LP, CGP, is a psychoanalyst in private practice who works in the area of reproductive and maternal mental health. She founded the Network for the Advancement of Perinatal Support (NAPS), an integrative mental health program for OB-GYN offices and fertility clinics, and she partners with fertility clinics to provide group therapy to their IVF patients. Her article “Psychoanalytic Considerations on the Impact of Infertility, IVF, and the Politicization of Pregnancy on the Psyche” appeared in Studies in Gender and Sexuality (2025) and her forthcoming article “The Disembodiment of the Zoom Room: The Role of Projective Identification in Online and Hybrid Group Therapy Models” will be published in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is a graduate of CMPS and the Center for Group Studies and is on the faculty of CMPS.

Nancy Kaufman, LCSW, LP, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. She works with individuals, couples, and groups dealing with infertility and parenting after infertility. For the past 25 years, she has led the Third Party Parenting Network (TPPN), a group for those pursuing donor-assisted reproduction, with an emphasis on issues related to disclosure. Her article “Secrets and Lies and Donor Conceptions: What Donor-Conceived Individuals Feel About Their Disclosure/Discovery Experience” appeared in Human Reproduction (2025). She is a graduate of CMPS.

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