When the Analyst Becomes Pregnant—Twice

The impact of a significant event in an analyst's life on the treatment process makes for compelling study, for it invites exploration of the boundaries of the analytic situation as it is influenced by the analyst's fluctuating internal dynamic state. The events affect the analyst's conscious and unconscious receptivity and hence the capacity to analyze. When such an event is repeated at a later stage of the analysis, it offers a rare opportunity to compare and contrast the patient's responses as potential indicators of change.

Pregnancy represents a unique intrusion into the analytic situation. Birth is a motif that evokes powerful primitive fantasies, fears, and longings in all persons. Careful as the analyst may be to preserve her anonymity, the pregnant state eventually becomes evident and provokes or intensifies transference, countertransference, and resistance reactions. Unlike illness, when the analyst can often minimize unnecessary disclosure in explaining absences and changed appearance, the pregnant analyst's condition inevitably becomes “public property” in the analysis. Further, the possibility of successive pregnancies—quite expectable, given the growing number of women analysts and our tendency to postpone childbearing until later training years—offers increasing