I FEEL YOUR PAIN 93do not give way to “overidentification” (Weil 2010, 16), but rather allow
that the other may be different from oneself. For intersubjective feelings
for the other to be reliable — for them to afford recognition rather than
erasure — they may require a sense of alterity, the irreducibly of another’s
experience to one’s own (Levinas [1970] 1999, cited in A. Franks 2004). The
recognition of irreducible otherness is no doubt risky, as when difference is
sedimented and “finalized,” or when it “reduces this person to some set of
inherent properties to explain why he or she is a problem” (A. Franks 2004,
117).^12 Despite these risks, it may be necessary to acknowledge the limits of
shared embodiments, shared visions, and shared knowledges in order to
pay more serious attention to the failures and violences of intersubjectivity.