How others’ stories change our own

Whether we know it or not, hearing someone else’s story changes us. And telling our own story does even more. But the two together add a dimension that enables growing a greater empathy for others on the deepest level, and puts us in closer contact with our own lives.

On this Voices in the Family, we will be having a conversation with therapists Ruthy Kaiser and Kilian Fritsch about how reading the interviews of holocaust survivor families transformed them. We’ll talk about the dynamics of how sharing your story with others as well as hearing theirs is an essential part of kindling compassion for oneself as well as others. We will be speaking about Kaiser and Fritch’s reactions to reading the interviews of fellow therapist Bea Hollander-Goldfein and Bea’s own mother Saba, who was a holocaust survivor. The essays are from the book Narrative Reflections: How Their Stories Changed Our Lives is a book edited by Lucy S. Raizman and Bea Hollander-Goldfein.