Through a detailed report of a clinical situation, the author plans to show how fertility treatment can be both a resource and a risk factor. It can interfere with a satisfactory elaboration of the personal and marital issues implied in parenting and can risk reinforcing omnipotence, thereby making it more difficult to re-evaluate the most unrealistic expectations linked to the birth of a child. The author will also give an example of how careful work on parental roles can allow premature parents forced into a role for which they were not yet prepared to be psychologically born as parents.

Irene Ruggiero, in "INTERAZIONI" 1/2007, pp. 61-71, DOI: