Is there too much emphasis on psychosocial counseling for infertile patients?

Summary

Clinical papers strongly recommend psychosocial counseling for patients attending infertility clinics. These recommendations are at odds with studies showing that very few patients actually take-up such services. The disparity between recommendation and actual use would seem to be due to the lack of distinction between the needs of the few highly distressed patients who feel overwhelmed by their infertility and those of the average infertile couple who experience distress but cope well with it. In the former case, psychosocial counseling is likely to be beneficial, while in the latter case informal sources of help, for example, that provided through documentation, are likely to be sufficient. Unfortunately, the emphasis on psychosocial counseling for highly distressed patients in the area of infertility has left the needs of less distressed patients neglected and the potential usefulness of alternative methods of intervening with these patients unexplored.