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Psychosocial Effects Of Infertility, Elizabeth Kulikov

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Infertility, or the inability to conceive a child, is a symbolic loss that affects up to 20% of couples in the United States. A symbolic loss is a loss due to something other than death. Infertility has been described as a disenfranchised and anticipatory loss that can lead to complicated grief reactions. Disenfranchised losses are those wherein the grief often goes unrecognized, unacknowledged and misunderstood. Despite its prevalence and the severity of the grief and loss associated with infertility, academic literature examining the psychosocial effects of infertility is scarce. The purpose of this project was to investigate the existing literature …