Wedding up-to-date scientific information to an understanding of the emotional burdens and ethical dilemmas that inhere in reproductive medicine, Frozen Dreams: Psychodynamic Dimensions of Infertility and Assisted Reproduction provides an overview of the psychology of infertility patients and of the evaluative, administrative, and especially psychotherapeutic issues involved in helping them. The contributors to this volume, who include professionals from nationally prestigious reproductive programs and psychotherapists who evaluate and work clinically with infertility patients, explore the complex choices about life and death that are the daily experience of infertility specialists. In voices equally authoritative and intimate, psychotherapists and other health professionals explore the therapeutic process with patients and couples struggling with miscarriage, infertility, childlessness, the possibility of adoption, and the promise of assisted pregnancy. Among the themes that recur throughout this collection are the following: When is a patient's bitterness, anger, and psychopathology extreme enough to disqualify her as a candidate for infertility treatment? the well-being of offspring resulting from an assisted pregnancy? How does the clinician's personal diagnosis of infertility influence an ongoing psychodynamic treatment? How can a therapist help patients overcome the overwhelming grief of miscarriage? And the contributors are equally attentive to the range of issues that challenge physicians and nurses active in reproductive medicine. Intent on providing practical information that will aid decision-making in this demanding area of practice, they examine questions such as: How reproductive medicine programs should handle difficult patients who present with a sense of entitlement. How staff differences within reproductive medicine programs can be constructively addressed and resolved. Why physicians, nurses, and other program personnel experience burnout and what can be done to prevent it. Written for a large audience of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, researchers, nurses, physicians, and general readers, Frozen Dreams is a fascinating introduction to the human face of reproductive medicine. mental health professionals who work with adult patients through their childbearing years. For professionals who work inside the complex world of infertility treatment, Frozen Dreams will quickly become an essential text that is turned to repeatedly for information, guidance, reassurance, and revitalization.

Wedding up-to-date scientific information to an understanding of the emotional burdens and ethical dilemmas that inhere in reproductive medicine, Frozen Dreams: Psychodynamic Dimensions of Infertility and Assisted Reproduction provides an overview of the psychology of infertility patients and of the evaluative, administrative, and especially psychotherapeutic issues involved in helping them. The contributors to this volume, who include professionals from nationally prestigious reproductive programs and psychotherapists who evaluate and work clinically with infertility patients, explore the complex choices about life and death that are the daily experience of infertility specialists. In voices equally authoritative and intimate, psychotherapists and other health professionals explore the therapeutic process with patients and couples struggling with miscarriage, infertility, childlessness, the possibility of adoption, and the promise of assisted pregnancy. Among the themes that recur throughout this collection are the following: When is a patient's bitterness, anger, and psychopathology extreme enough to disqualify her as a candidate for infertility treatment? the well-being of offspring resulting from an assisted pregnancy? How does the clinician's personal diagnosis of infertility influence an ongoing psychodynamic treatment? How can a therapist help patients overcome the overwhelming grief of miscarriage? And the contributors are equally attentive to the range of issues that challenge physicians and nurses active in reproductive medicine. Intent on providing practical information that will aid decision-making in this demanding area of practice, they examine questions such as: How reproductive medicine programs should handle difficult patients who present with a sense of entitlement. How staff differences within reproductive medicine programs can be constructively addressed and resolved. Why physicians, nurses, and other program personnel experience burnout and what can be done to prevent it. Written for a large audience of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, researchers, nurses, physicians, and general readers, Frozen Dreams is a fascinating introduction to the human face of reproductive medicine. mental health professionals who work with adult patients through their childbearing years. For professionals who work inside the complex world of infertility treatment, Frozen Dreams will quickly become an essential text that is turned to repeatedly for information, guidance, reassurance, and revitalization.

This SpringerBriefs employs a novel approach to obtain the precise asymptotic behavior at infinity of a large class of permanental sequences related to birth and death processes and autoregressive Gaussian sequences using techniques from the theory of Gaussian processes and Markov chains. The authors study alpha-permanental processes that are positive infinitely divisible processes determined by the potential density of a transient Markov process. When the Markov process is symmetric, a 1/2-permanental process is the square of a Gaussian process. Permanental processes are related by the Dynkin isomorphism theorem to the total accumulated local time of the Markov process when the potential density is symmetric, and by a generalization of the Dynkin theorem by Eisenbaum and Kaspi without requiring symmetry. Permanental processes are also related to chi square processes and loop soups. The book appeals to researchers and advanced graduate students interested in stochastic processes, infinitely divisible processes and Markov chains.

This book was first published in 2006. Written by two of the foremost researchers in the field, this book studies the local times of Markov processes by employing isomorphism theorems that relate them to certain associated Gaussian processes. It builds to this material through self-contained but harmonized 'mini-courses' on the relevant ingredients, which assume only knowledge of measure-theoretic probability. The streamlined selection of topics creates an easy entrance for students and experts in related fields. The book starts by developing the fundamentals of Markov process theory and then of Gaussian process theory, including sample path properties. It then proceeds to more advanced results, bringing the reader to the heart of contemporary research. It presents the remarkable isomorphism theorems of Dynkin and Eisenbaum and then shows how they can be applied to obtain new properties of Markov processes by using well-established techniques in Gaussian process theory. This original, readable book will appeal to both researchers and advanced graduate students.

This book was first published in 2006. Written by two of the foremost researchers in the field, this book studies the local times of Markov processes by employing isomorphism theorems that relate them to certain associated Gaussian processes. It builds to this material through self-contained but harmonized 'mini-courses' on the relevant ingredients, which assume only knowledge of measure-theoretic probability. The streamlined selection of topics creates an easy entrance for students and experts in related fields. The book starts by developing the fundamentals of Markov process theory and then of Gaussian process theory, including sample path properties. It then proceeds to more advanced results, bringing the reader to the heart of contemporary research. It presents the remarkable isomorphism theorems of Dynkin and Eisenbaum and then shows how they can be applied to obtain new properties of Markov processes by using well-established techniques in Gaussian process theory. This original, readable book will appeal to both researchers and advanced graduate students.