Fertility Support

Fertility Support Fertility Support is the only psychotherapy practice focused on fertility and gynaecological issues.

Our team includes specialised psychotherapists who have ample experience working on issues such as: assessing fertility options (including IVF, surrogacy, donors or adoption), pregnancy-related issues (including high risk-pregnancies or birth trauma), exploring a “child-free” or ”child-less” lifestyle, considering a termination, coping with medical issues such as endometriosis, PCOS or adenomyosis

, and dealing with erectile dysfunction, among other issues. Fertility Support offers individual therapy and couples therapy as well as group therapy and one-day retreats. Our aim is to offer individuals a space where they can find compassionate care, understanding and a new way forward.

Fertility Support is delighted to introduce Duncan Branley.Duncan is an experienced psychos*xual and relationship therap...
02/06/2026

Fertility Support is delighted to introduce Duncan Branley.

Duncan is an experienced psychos*xual and relationship therapist who works with adult couples and individuals struggling in their relationships and s*x lives, including difficulties with desire, intimacy, communication, and s*xual difficulties.

Many people going through fertility treatment or loss find that intimacy begins to change, particularly when s*x becomes associated with pressure, timing, disappointment, or grief. This can affect not only a couple’s s*xual connection, but also how each person experiences their body, desire, and sense of self. Duncan offers a non-judgemental space in which couples and individuals can explore what is happening between them, understand the emotional meanings beneath the surface, and begin to make changes that feel both realistic and sustaining. Duncan is also interested in the effects of boarding school experiences on adult relationships.

Alongside private practice, Duncan has taught and supervised on the Couple Therapy for Depression training at Tavistock Relationships and continues to provide supervision for NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies staff. He has been a visiting psychos*xual therapist and tutor at Tavistock Relationships, taught on the MA in Relationship Therapy for the Relate Institute, and taught on the MA in Counselling at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Duncan is Chair of the UKCP College for Sexual and Relationship Psychotherapy (CSRP), and was previously the Director of Ethics and Standards for the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online (ACTO). He is also a member of the British Society for Sexual Medicine (BSSM), the European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM), the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM).

Duncan holds an MSc in Psychos*xual and Relationship Therapy and a Certificate in Psychos*xual Studies from Tavistock Relationships, and an MA in Relationship Therapy from the Relate Institute.

During Pride Month, we celebrate the journey that all families embark upon in their pursuit of parenthood. As we come to...
01/06/2026

During Pride Month, we celebrate the journey that all families embark upon in their pursuit of parenthood. As we come together to honour the diversity and strength of the LGBTQ+ community, we also recognize the unique challenges that LGBTQ+ individuals face when it comes to starting or expanding their families.

For many LGBTQ+ individuals, the path to parenthood can be filled with additional hurdles and complexities. The road may be marked by legal barriers, societal prejudices, and a lack of accessible resources. These challenges can create feelings of frustration, sadness, and uncertainty as LGBTQ+ individuals navigate a system that may not fully recognize or support their desires to become parents.

During Pride Month, let’s stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ individuals and families, acknowledging their unique challenges and showing unwavering support. May this month serve as a reminder that love knows no boundaries, and that every individual, regardless of s*xual orientation or gender identity, deserves the opportunity to experience parenthood if they wish to do so.

🌈

During a difficult fertility journey, there is often an unspoken expectation not only about outcomes, but about how you ...
29/05/2026

During a difficult fertility journey, there is often an unspoken expectation not only about outcomes, but about how you should cope. There can be pressure to stay hopeful, composed, or strong, even when the experience itself is unpredictable and emotionally demanding.

When difficult emotions arise, such as fear, anger, or anxiety, they can begin to feel like a failure of coping rather than a response to what has been endured. The struggle is not only with what is happening, but with how you judge your own reactions to it.

These responses are not excessive or misplaced. They are consistent with repeated uncertainty, disappointment, and waiting. The intensity of what you feel reflects the weight of the experience, not a lack of resilience.

Being patient with yourself is not about waiting passively for things to improve. It is about allowing your responses to exist without treating them as something to fix. Healing, growth, and change do not happen on demand, and they do not follow a controlled pace.

What would it mean to relate to your own experience with the same patience you are trying to extend to the process itself?

The experience of going through fertility treatment can feel like constant movement. One stage leads into another, and t...
29/05/2026

The experience of going through fertility treatment can feel like constant movement. One stage leads into another, and there is often something pending in the background. A result to wait for. A decision to make. It can feel as though there is rarely a moment of stillness.

Within that pace, attention is often drawn towards what is happening externally. Appointments, medications, test results, practical decisions. Over time, this repeated orientation towards what needs to happen next begins to shape the whole experience. The mind becomes organised around management, anticipation, and response.

When this continues for long enough, contact with internal experience can become thinner. Feelings are still present, but not always fully registered. Thoughts move quickly towards planning or coping. The day continues, with less space to notice what is being carried emotionally. This can create a subtle distance from the self, where experience is being endured without being fully met.

Moments of stillness can interrupt that pattern. Time in nature can be particularly helpful because it does not ask for anything. There is nothing to solve, no outcome to produce, no decision that needs to be made in that moment. The pace is different. Attention has a chance to settle rather than remain fixed on what is next.

That change in rhythm can make contact with yourself more possible again. You may notice tiredness that had been pushed aside, sadness that had stayed beneath the surface, or simply the extent of what this has been asking of you. You may also notice something steadier: breath, sensation, the feeling of being present in your own body for a moment, rather than only in your thoughts about what comes next.

This is part of what stillness can offer: a brief return to yourself. A space in which your experience can be felt rather than managed. A space in which you are not only the person trying to get through this, but also the person living through it.

What happens when you allow yourself a moment that is not organised around progress or outcome?

Kylie Minogue is an Australian singer and performer whose career has spanned more than three decades. In her recent Netf...
21/05/2026

Kylie Minogue is an Australian singer and performer whose career has spanned more than three decades. In her recent Netflix documentary, she spoke about how breast cancer affected her fertility and led her to IVF treatment. She described delaying chemotherapy in the hope of preserving the possibility of having children. Her experience draws attention to the emotional complexity of making reproductive decisions while facing serious illness.

People preparing for cancer treatment are sometimes offered fertility preservation through egg, embryo, or s***m freezing. Considering these options can require people to think about future parenthood while still trying to absorb the psychological impact of a life-altering diagnosis. Decisions about imagined parenthood are therefore made at the exact moment the future may have become uncertain. Trying to survive the present while protecting the possibility of a future family can feel psychologically disorienting and emotionally overwhelming.

Later, once cancer treatment has ended, some people may use frozen eggs, embryos, or s***m to pursue pregnancy through IVF. The process then unfolds in a body already shaped by scans, procedures, medication, and medical surveillance. Hormone treatment, monitoring, and repeated waiting periods can revive earlier experiences of fear and bodily vulnerability connected to illness. The emotional impact of cancer may therefore remain active throughout fertility treatment itself.

Kylie has also spoken about reaching a point where she had to accept that motherhood was not going to happen for her. Her disclosure draws attention to how reproductive grief after cancer is often poorly recognised socially. Public narratives around survivorship tend to focus on recovery and resilience. Many people continue privately living with questions about fertility, identity, ageing, and the future they once imagined for themselves. These experiences can remain psychologically active long after treatment has ended.

When everything is focused on one outcome, to conceive, it can begin to feel as though only what helps to accomplish tha...
21/05/2026

When everything is focused on one outcome, to conceive, it can begin to feel as though only what helps to accomplish that truly matters. Time, energy, and attention become organised around that goal. Activities, needs, and parts of life that do not contribute to it can start to feel secondary, as though they can be postponed or set aside.

With this mindset, self-care can feel optional, even indulgent. It can begin to feel undeserved, as though care should be earned through progress, rather than something that is needed simply because of what you are carrying.

When you prioritise self-care, the emotional weight of a difficult fertility process remains present, but there is more space to process it. The uncertainty, the waiting, and the repeated disappointments continue to be experienced, but with more room for them to soften. Over time, this can make the experience feel more bearable.

Self-care shapes how a difficult experience is lived. It creates moments where the nervous system is not only in anticipation or recovery, where the mind is not only focused on outcomes. It allows some regulation, some steadiness, within something that is ongoing and often unpredictable.

It is not about adding more tasks or doing self-care in a particular way. It is about whether you make space to notice your limits, to respond to your needs, and to treat your experience as something that requires care. This includes rest, attention, and small acts of looking after yourself, even when nothing feels resolved.

What would shift if self-care was understood not as something separate from this process, but as part of how you move through it?

Joy DeGruy reminds us that healing begins with understanding. Understanding is what allows emotional experience to make ...
14/05/2026

Joy DeGruy reminds us that healing begins with understanding. Understanding is what allows emotional experience to make sense. When feelings are not understood, they can seem random or excessive, which often leads to confusion or self-judgement. By exploring why we feel the way we do, we bring coherence to what initially feels chaotic.

Fertility treatment can stir emotions that seem disconnected from the situation itself. You might feel less confident at work and not understand why, or you might feel angry with your partner without knowing exactly what has provoked it. These emotions can appear unrelated to fertility, yet they are often shaped by it. The sense of insufficiency that comes from struggling to conceive can quietly colour how you see yourself in other areas of life. Likewise, anger toward your partner may not be about them at all, but about the helplessness of not being able to change what is happening to your body and your future.

When pain cannot be acknowledged directly, it looks for safer places to appear. This displacement happens because the original emotion feels too threatening to face head-on. The mind protects itself by redirecting the feeling toward something less painful, where it can be expressed without confronting the real source. While this helps you cope in the moment, it also keeps the underlying wound from healing.

Understanding allows these emotions to return to their rightful place. When you trace a feeling back to its origin, it begins to make sense. The emotion itself may not disappear, but it becomes integrated rather than scattered. Understanding restores coherence to your inner world and invites compassion for parts of you that have been reacting out of pain.

Healing begins with this kind of insight, not by suppressing what you feel but by recognising what those feelings are trying to show you.

What part of your emotional experience might need to be understood before it can begin to heal?

is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of Florence + The Machine. She has spoken about e...
11/05/2026

is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of Florence + The Machine. She has spoken about experiencing an ectopic pregnancy while on tour, a medical emergency in which a pregnancy develops outside the uterus and can become life-threatening within a short period of time.

An ectopic pregnancy places the reproductive body in a situation where a process associated with creating life becomes physically dangerous. It can involve rupture, internal bleeding, and urgent intervention. The body is experienced in a state of instability, where medical treatment is needed to prevent further harm. This combination of sudden threat, physical danger, and emergency care can be traumatic. Studies show that a notable proportion of women develop post-traumatic stress symptoms afterwards, with some meeting the criteria for PTSD.

The proximity to death can shape how the pregnancy loss is registered. The focus is often on getting through what is happening and receiving treatment. The pregnancy may not be emotionally processed in the way people expect. The loss remains, but it may not be recognised or articulated until later, once the immediate threat has passed.

has also described a sense of entering into something shared, as though encountering the presence of other women who have been through similar experiences. Experiences like this are part of a wider pattern in women’s health, where complex or difficult reproductive events are less visible in everyday conversation and are often only recognised once they have been lived through. That can leave people without a clear frame of reference at the time, even when others have had similar experiences.

Her account brings attention to how some reproductive events do not align with familiar narratives of pregnancy or loss. They involve emergency, survival, and loss within the same experience, and may not settle into a single, coherent meaning.

What might change if these experiences were given more space in how we talk about women’s health, rather than remaining at the margins of it?

Fertility Support is delighted to introduce Marguerite Reid.Marguerite is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with long-sta...
07/05/2026

Fertility Support is delighted to introduce Marguerite Reid.

Marguerite is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with long-standing clinical expertise in perinatal mental health. She co-founded the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital over 20 years ago, and has remained closely focused on the psychological realities of pregnancy, birth, early parenting, and the relational pressures these can place on individuals and couples. A central strand of her work addresses the way perinatal loss can shape the inner world of a subsequent pregnancy and baby, including how mourning, fear, and protective defences may influence bonding and the developing parent–infant relationship.

Marguerite has served as a visiting lecturer and trainer at Tavistock Relationships, contributing to courses and continuing professional development in perinatal and couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has taught extensively in the UK and internationally, including infant observation teaching and course development. She also co-founded an Infant Observation course in Izmir, Turkey.

Marguerite’s doctoral research examined perinatal loss and the mother’s experience following the birth of a subsequent child. She has published in this area, with a particular focus on the emotional aftermath of baby loss, the psychological impact of traumatic birth, and the ways early experiences can shape bonding and attachment. Her published work includes: “Clinical research: The inner world of the mother and her new baby – born in the shadow of death” (Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 2003), “The loss of a baby and the birth of the next infant: the mother’s experience” (Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 2007), and “The impact of traumatic delivery on the mother–infant relationship” (Infant Observation, 2011).

Today begins the 10th Annual Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. It is a moment to pause, to listen, and to speak mor...
05/05/2026

Today begins the 10th Annual Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. It is a moment to pause, to listen, and to speak more honestly about the emotional realities of motherhood.

Women are often not truly listened to when they speak about their mental health, especially before, during, and after pregnancy. Distress is often explained as hormones, tiredness, or adjustment, which leads to it being minimised. Emotional difficulties can also be interpreted as a normal part of motherhood, or something that will pass, which further reduces how seriously they are taken.

The perinatal period is emotionally complex, physically intense, and often overwhelming. One in four women will experience a mental health difficulty during this time, yet many will not receive the care they need. These experiences need to be properly understood so that they can be attended to.

However, when women look back on this period, many share the same uncomfortable feeling: “I didn’t feel listened to.” Many describe being reassured or advised too quickly, without their experience being fully heard. When this happens, what is behind the emotional struggle remains only partially understood.

When experiences are explored in enough detail, the focus moves beyond surface explanations. Exploring psychological difficulty means making space for the full picture, including thoughts, emotions, fears, and context, rather than focusing only on surface explanations. Being heard allows women to describe their experience more fully, identify what they need, and access appropriate support. Most women who experience postnatal mental health difficulties improve with the right support, but only if that support is available and feels safe to reach.

Maternal mental health matters. Not just today, and not just this week but always.

and thank you for all you do.


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