New paradigms of parenthood: researching practice in a fertility clinic incarnating new forms of family

Abstract

Traditional notions of parenthood are being challenged by the requests for treatment in a licensed fertility clinic. The unprecedented fast‐moving changes in assisted reproductive technology, especially gamete (sperm, eggs, embryo) donation, are enabling the creation of new forms of family. For this to be the subject of new systemic research, a reflexive intertwining of both research activities and professional practice activities is required with each informing and forming the other. Indeed, practitioners are researchers by virtue of rigorously using reflexive analytical processes in daily practice moment by moment. If we author ourselves in conversation with others, the ‘thing’ we are studying are ways of talking and relating to each other. Thus a paradigm shift has to be made, from examining entities to attending to language or language processes – especially in the counselling conversation that precedes treatment. This article presents a model where the ‘small’ stories of everyday lives are turned from a passing event into a research enterprise as witness to social change. For the social skills we use to do both practice and research attach us to real human beings in deeply human ways. Practitioner points One counselling conversation can help people to reflect on creating the new forms of family they envision and place this in an ethical context. Conversational practice challenges institutional traditions and moves towards a more philosophical model of collaborative inquiry Clients telling their story become observers of their own thinking and see themselves as experts in their own lives The practitioner uses reflexive analytical processes, foregrounding the ethical in order to minimize social and power inequalities