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If a human life is described with enough particularity, the universal will begin to speak through it.
It probably goes without saying that talking about difference raises powerful feelings; it may feel exciting and enlivening to one person; distancing, threatening, or futile to another. The stakes may feel very high to one participant while the other may feel she has little to lose. This may be accentuated especially when asymmetrical power dynamics are at play, due either to the hierarchy present in a relationship like the supervisory one or to different positions of societal privilege. Because of this delicate arrangement, it is crucial to tune in to the interactive process and experience while engaged in a dialogue about difference. I believe that listening to this level of process is, in fact, as important as hearing the spoken words. Am I feeling relaxed, frightened, connected? How attuned and curious am I feeling about my partner in dialogue?
In an intimate situation like the clinical or supervisory one, when the hot issues of race, culture, sexuality, gender, class and disability arise, it is important to keep a finger right on the pulse of the exchange lest someone gets inadvertently wounded, alienated, or silently enraged without this getting noticed and incorporated into the process. There is quite a challenge here: The person living “in the margins” is often sick and tired of being hypernoticed and scrutinized and yet she may feel invisible all at the very same time. She is too often seen for what she represents and not as a fully fleshed-out person. And so when speaking with her about difference, we must be careful not to foist onto her the burden of representation while still