ABSTRACT

The relations between the personal and the social were introduced in the previous discussion of Kitzinger’s life and activism. Here we outline the possibilities of a psychosocial approach to thinking about this relationship to think about birth and dying and the connections between emotional states and social norms, anxieties and hopes as well as expectations and regulations. We introduce the idea of death and birth as liminal spaces through the psychosocial approach to think through both as key life transitions and phases of living. One of the core ways in which the personal and social connect is through birth and death stories and this chapter explores how people make sense of these life transitions as well as how the personal becomes a domain for activism and social change. The links between the personal and social activism are explored through notions of choice, which, whilst restrictive in a neoliberal framing, are also key tenets of having a good birth or death – the latter is shown through the example of Debbie Purdy.