[Psychiatry and the control of procreation]

Natural human reproduction is now controlled by medical means -contraception, surgical sterilization, free abortion-but for some couples (with a sterility problem) procreation is assisted by biological artifices-heterologous artificial insemination-or simulated by legal artifices = adoption (in France adopted children are officially notified as born from their adopting parents). These new biological methods and customs may create emotional disturbances and problems of identity. Psychiatrists have to know, to prevent or to treat them. This is a new pathology and there is a new role for psychiatrist.