[Counseling in artificial fertilization]

Since 1 October 1990, German legislation requires compulsory counselling of an infertile couple before artificial insemination on the medical and psychosocial aspects, by a doctor not performing the treatment. A prerequisite of successful counselling, which enables the couple to take a decision and helps coping with the psychosocial stress of sterility and its consequences, is, in addition to the intrinsic motivation of the couple, also the empathy and the discussion with the doctor. Subject for counselling should be the burdens of therapy, effects of the sterility upon sexuality, partnership, and communication, motivations for wanting a child and the functions of the child for both partners individually and as a partnership. As a prophylactic measure against the development of a neurotic desire for a child and a fixation upon sterility therapy, alternative resolving strategies for therapy failure should be discussed and developed.