Fertility and reproductive health
Fertility treatment runs on other people's timetables and on results you cannot change by trying harder. That is what we talk about, including whether to stop, without me managing you.
A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.
You might recognise
- My year is organised around dates I did not choose.
- I brace for the phone call, and I cannot do anything else until it comes.
- I dread the injections, and I have not told anyone how much.
- I cannot be happy for other people any more, and I hate that about myself.
- We have stopped talking about it, because every conversation ends the same way.
- I do not know how we would ever decide to stop.
Why it happens
Fertility treatment is an unusually demanding psychological situation, for reasons that have little to do with resilience. The timetable belongs to the clinic. Effort does not reliably change the outcome. The result arrives as a number or a phone call, on a day you did not choose. Hormonal treatment adds a physiological layer. Stimulation protocols and hormonal shifts affect mood, sleep and irritability directly, which means part of what feels like emotional fragility is pharmacological. Loss in this field is often unwitnessed. An early miscarriage, a failed cycle, a chemical pregnancy, an embryo that did not develop are real losses that frequently go unmarked, and grief without acknowledgement tends to go underground rather than away. Relationships take a particular strain. Two people usually cope differently and at different speeds, and difference gets misread as not caring. Sex often becomes scheduled and then avoided, while the same conversation repeats without resolution. Social life becomes hazardous. Pregnancy announcements, family questions, holidays and other people's children all land somewhere, and the guilt about the reaction is often heavier than the reaction. The pressure to stay positive is common and unhelpful. There is no good evidence that being sufficiently calm produces a pregnancy, and being told otherwise adds blame to a situation that is already heavy.
How therapy helps here
- CBT for the waiting and the cycle
- The two-week wait, the day before a result, and the reading of every twinge as a sign are all workable. We look at what attention does when there is genuinely nothing to do, and build a specific plan for those days rather than a general instruction to relax.
- Needle and procedure work
- Injections, blood draws and transvaginal scans respond to graded exposure, and to applied tension if you tend to faint. Practical preparation matters here too: timing, positioning, who does the injection, and what you ask the clinic for.
- Grief and psychodynamic work after loss
- Losses that had no ritual still need naming. We give the failed cycle, the miscarriage or the ended treatment the status of a loss, and look at what it touches from earlier in your life, which is often why one particular loss hit hardest.
- EMDR for a specific traumatic episode
- An emergency, a procedure that went badly, the moment of a scan, or a sentence a doctor said can stay live in a way that ordinary talking does not settle. EMDR targets that episode so that treatment ahead is not filtered through it.
What the first sessions look like
- We start with where you are in treatment right now, and what is coming in the next few weeks.
- We separate anxiety from a reasonable response to genuine uncertainty. Not everything here needs treating.
- If there is a decision in the room, another cycle, donor options, or stopping, we make space to think about it without me steering you.
- We agree specifically what to do on the hard days, including the day a result comes.
You do not have to be positive here, and nothing you feel about other people's pregnancies will be held against you.
What this does not replace
Therapy is not fertility treatment. I do not interpret results, advise on protocols, or offer a medical view on whether to do another cycle, and nothing here is offered as a way of improving your chances of conceiving, because that is not what it does. If you are in acute crisis, or a psychiatric assessment is needed around mood and medication, that comes first and I will say so.
Common questions
What does a session cost, and how long is it?
An individual session is 45-50 minutes and costs €130. A group session is 90 minutes and costs €70-100. All sessions are online, in Hebrew or English.
Can therapy improve my chances of getting pregnant?
No, and anyone promising that is selling something. The reason to come is that the treatment period is hard to live through, that loss deserves attention, and that decisions of this size are easier to think about with someone who is not invested in the answer.
Can my partner join?
For some sessions, yes, and it is often useful when the two of you are coping at different speeds. It is worth naming that this is individual therapy with a partner present rather than couples therapy, and if the relationship is the main difficulty, couples work is the better setting.
I am in the middle of a cycle. Is this a bad time to start?
Not necessarily. Short, focused work during a cycle is possible, and the frequency can follow the protocol rather than a fixed weekly slot. Some people prefer to start between cycles, which is also reasonable.
What about after a loss, or after deciding to stop?
Both are common reasons to come, and often the more important ones. Grief frequently surfaces later, once the appointments stop and there is finally room for it, and there is no point at which it is too late to bring.
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A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.