Paper short abstract:

This presentation aims to reflect on the benefits of anthropological counselling in fertility journeys. Based on the AFIN-ART Anthropological Support Service's experience, we explore the therapeutic potential of anthropology and the negotiation it entails with the limits of this social science.

Paper long abstract:

The paths in assisted reproductive care can be particularly long, tedious, and filled with disruptive events and elements in the lives of individuals who need medical assistance to fulfill their reproductive desires. Often, these journeys lead - or force - individuals to question and reconsider choices made in the past, their future, and the meaning they attribute to elements that seemed immutable to them: What is family? What does it mean to be a mother, father, or siblings? What role is given to genetics, and why? Have I failed to meet expectations placed upon me -according to my gender, age, etc.-?

This presentation aims to show how anthropologically framed counselling can help to improve people’s well-being (Gerstein et al 2007; Varenne, 2003) in their reproductive journeys, based on the experience of the award-winning AFIN-ART Anthropological Support Service. Since its creation in 2016, this service has shown how anthropology can be particularly useful in helping people to recognize that the individual understanding and values attributed to reproductive issues are not universal but depend on the social and cultural meanings. Considering the social and cultural meaning of reproduction, the process of "kinning" (Howell, 2005), the relationship with biology, culture, personal values and lifestyles, as well as being able to question what seems to be indisputable, helps people to find alternative narratives to understand, give meaning to, and cope with the contradictions they face in their journey, showing the therapeutical potential of applied anthropology for them, but also for anthropologists themselves.