People who listen to stories about trauma and recovery may hear things they never wanted to hear. They may also simply fail to hear stories well due to various presuppositions about how the world works, what counts as a stable narrative, or what it is they think they’re listening for. Recovery from violence and oppression involves work on the part of those who have been harmed, of course. But it also requires that those who have not been harmed learn how to hear stories about trauma and even to listen for their own failures of hearing. This talk will take a philosophical look at the difficulties that reside on all sides of this complicated conversation, focusing equally on testimony from traumatized survivors of a wide array of harms and on the reasons why even those who have been trained to listen sometimes fail to hear well.