Infertility as an Unresolved Trauma: Understanding Women’s Psychological Distress

Infertility can have substantial psychological consequences for women, including anxiety, depression, grief, shame and disruption to identity. Previous research has commonly understood this distress through stress-and-coping models. However, these approaches may not fully explain why distress can persist across repeated treatment cycles, recur in response to reminders, or continue even after fertility treatment has ended.

In a qualitative study published in September 2026, Jackson and colleagues explored whether infertility-related distress may be better understood through a trauma-informed framework, specifically the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model that underpins Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. The AIP model proposes that distress can persist when adverse experiences have not been adequately processed and remain linked to emotions, bodily sensations and negative beliefs about the self.