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This paper is a response to Miranda Boldrini’s article. Based on a one-year fieldwork inside a neonatal care unit in Switzerland, it deals with the issue of how one gets to know one’s needs and the limits of such knowledge. First, a description of a scene drawn on my own field experience shows how it can be difficult to assume an attitude of receptivity and responsiveness in the case where one cannot read another’s needs. Second, the paper broaches the topic of testimony, looking at the ways in which it could be considered as a form of response to and recognition of another’s pain.