This discussion of Joye Weiselbarth’s paper, Shame and Punishment: The Case of Angie, examines the concept of “expanded empathy”. This concept was introduced to address the difficulty of empathic understanding of a woman who had vastly different life experiences from Joye. I suggest that empathic responsiveness is needed to establish enough connection and trust for the analysis to survive the inevitable disruption that occurred when the disconnect between their worlds became painfully evident. Further, I suggest that it is necessary for the analyst to face both the limits of empathy as a foundation for understanding as well as the invisible demands that silence the recognition of traumatic racism in psychoanalytic practice.