About 2 months ago my youngest son turned 40. He became quite angry at me for giving him a birthday card with number 40 in large letters. He has been extremely upset about his birthday for decades and avoids most references to it. I wanted to give him a present that would be meaningful to him and that would make me feel I had done right by him even if he didn’t want it. In my search I came upon your book, Birth Trauma: The Psychological Effects of Obstetrical Interventions. It was exactly what I was looking for: authority-based material about the kind of situation he lived through and that I was present for–Pitocin, anesthesia, forceps especially. The Avoidant forceps delivery description captures his personality.
All the evidence in your book also supports my own traumatization by forceps and anesthesia. During my years of “primal” discharging I have spent serious time working with what has always seemed to be forceps trauma and serious time pushing like a baby trying to get born. Whenever I do such sessions my hands “take over” and I observe them doing what needs to be done, such as pressing into my temples or choking me, frequently eliciting screams from me. What is happening in these sessions seems clearly to be forceps sliding down the sides of my head before clamping and pulling. There was one change of position before pulling until it stopped. The detail and the sequence of activity was what was so awesome.