Listen

Most of us have a conversation we’re avoiding.

From the bestselling author of With the End in Mind , this is a book about the conversations that matter and how to have them better – more honestly, more confidently and without regret.

A child coming out to their parent. A family losing someone to terminal illness. A friend noticing the first signs of someone’s dementia. A career’s advisor and a teenager with radically different perspectives.

There are moments when we must talk, listen and be there for one another. Why do we so often come away from those times feeling like we could have done more, or should have been braver in the face of discomfort? Why do we skirt the conversations that might matter most?

By bringing together deeply moving stories with a lifetime’s experience working in medicine and the newest psychology, Mannix offers lessons for how we can better speak our mind and help when others need to.

There is probably a conversation that you are currently avoiding having. This is a book to help you have it, to help you be there for others, to help you ask for what you want and need, to help you be less unsure in the face of change and challenge.

About the Author

Kathryn Mannix has spent her medical career working with people who have incurable, advanced illnesses. Starting in cancer care and changing career to become a pioneer of the new discipline of palliative medicine, she has worked in teams in hospices, hospitals and in patients’ own homes to deliver palliative care, optimising quality of life even as death is approaching.

Having qualified as a Cognitive Behaviour Therapist in 1993, she started the UK’s (possibly the world’s) first CBT clinic exclusively for palliative care patients, and devised ‘CBT First Aid’ training to enable palliative care colleagues to add new skills to their repertoire for helping patients. Kathryn has worked with many thousands of dying people, and has found their ability to deal with illness and death both fascinating and inspirational.

She believes that a better public awareness about what happens as we die would reduce fear and enable people to discuss their hopes and plans with the people who matter to them.