From ‘Bad’ Ritual to ‘Good’ Ritual: Transmutations of Childbearing Trauma in Holotropic Ritual

In this article a tentative and provisional theory is advanced on the
treatment of birth-giving trauma. ‘Birth-giving-trauma’ here refers to women (and
men) psychologically, physically or emotionally traumatized during birth-giving. In the
first part of this article I outline anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd’s argument that
Western medicalized birthing can be constructed as a ‘modern’ rite of passage which
can negatively imprint disempowering images into women’s minds, reinforce messages
of inferiority, and traumatise the birth-giving mothers. In the second half of the article
I will argue that the trauma catalysed by the ‘bad’ ritual of technocratic birth may need
to be therapeutically treated or rather ‘ritually combated’ with an equally powerful and
reparative ‘good’ ritual. I will explore psychiatrist Stanislav Grof’s and Christina Grof’s
holotropic breathwork as a pre-eminent contemporary ritual in which ‘good’
transpersonal medicine is ritually made.
KEY WORDS: Birth, childbearing trauma, transpersonal psychology, ana