ABSTRACT
W HEN A WOMAN STARTS TO TALK about her traumatic birth sheoften describes the experience in terms of pain. That word is a flag with which she signals the need to have distress acknowledged and understood. Yet as her narrative unfolds, the single concept ‘pain’ becomes much more complex. It emerges that it was pain she could not manage or control because of what other people were doing to her. It was pain with which she was trapped.
