Several Euro-American approaches to couple and family therapy have been instrumental in promoting successful practice of couple and family therapy in continental Africa. This article, however, describes one instance in which an African couple's distress of one-dimensional fertility could not be resolved by drawing solely from the Euro-American family therapy tradition. One-dimensional fertility is defined as a crisis that arises in conditions of sonlessness or daughterlessness in a marriage, that is, in situations where there are only male or female children born to the marriage. The use of medical intervention through the prescription of drugs often worsens rather than enhances the psychological well-being of couples who suffer from the distress of one-dimensional fertility. Therefore, it is considered beneficial to encourage the development and recognition of psychological literature that suggests what to be done to control such a distress without recourse to the use of medication or the complicated and sensitive procedure of in vitro fertilisation. The article suggests that the leading intervention package for attending to the challenge of couples with the distress of one-dimensional fertility entails the exercise of inducting them into the principles and practice of the fertility awareness-based method of family planning known as the billings ovulation method that is in harmony with the African cultural perspective.

中文翻译：

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非洲家庭一维生育的苦恼

欧美夫妻和家庭治疗的几种方法有助于促进非洲大陆夫妻和家庭治疗的成功实践。然而，本文描述了一个例子，其中一对非洲夫妇对一维生育能力的困扰无法仅靠欧美家庭治疗传统来解决。单维生育率被定义为在婚姻中无儿子或无女儿的情况下，即婚姻中只有男孩或女孩的情况下出现的危机。通过处方药物进行医疗干预往往会恶化而不是改善遭受一维生育困扰的夫妇的心理健康。因此，鼓励心理学文献的发展和认可被认为是有益的，这些文献建议如何控制这种痛苦，而无需使用药物或复杂而敏感的体外受精程序。该文章建议，应对患有一维生育困扰的夫妇所面临的挑战的主要干预措施包括引导他们了解基于生育意识的计划生育方法（称为比林斯排卵法）的原则和实践。这与非洲文化观点相一致。