Until we walk in someone else’s shoes, we cannot know their full experience and they in turn cannot know ours. A collaborative understanding and perspective doesn’t mean we believe and think exactly the same way as the other person, but it is how we grow and learn from one another. We may not agree on all points, in fact we probably won’t, but we can glean a lot from each other as we continue to communicate and work together.

I recently had the pleasure of working with a Polish-born reviewer who I asked to do a “sensitivity” read of Klara’s Truth. I hadn’t thought of doing this earlier in the process, but late is better than not at all. A sensitivity read can open our eyes to how someone from another country, culture, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or different life experience of multiple sorts, makes sense of the world. We are all shaped by our own particular internal propensities, families, communities, countries, and overall education, and those experiences are distinct from the next person, particularly when we get into larger differences like where we’ve grown up.

The sensitivity read was helpful both in terms of clarifying some details of the story like the names of Polish streets and businesses and of course their proper locations, as well as helping me to consider how easily I assumed certain signs would be in English perhaps in addition to Polish. Most of all, it helped me to become more conscious of  my overall American perspective and sensibility from growing up in this country and being educated here, and therefore being less aware of how others may be highly sensitive to something I am not, as well as the other way around.

This reminds me of my work as a psychotherapist.  The starting point in therapy is building trust in one another. The client must feel the therapist has their best interests at heart and is not judging them, and the therapist must feel the client is invested in the work in order so that they can best help them. Regarding my sensitivity read, I was very lucky to work with a smart, thoughtful, and kind reviewer who I felt understood that I wanted to learn more in earnest. We developed a comfortable level of trust so that we could make the most out of working together. I think that my novel, Kara’s Truth, is stronger for it.