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.
EARLY PRAISE FOR LISTEN 'This gentle-hearted, engagingly and intimately readable book is so full of wisdom and compassion. Everyone should read it' Nigella Lawson 'Kathryn Mannix has a gift for cutting through the noise and helping us realise what is most important. In a world that never stops talking, this book celebrates and demonstrates the curative power of listening. It is powerful, humane and wise, illuminating how having the right conversations can transform our relationships with loved ones, with change, with death and with ourselves' Julia Samuel 'This is a beautiful book. It gets to the heart of difficult conversation and consoling talk. I'm glad it will be in the world. Too often people want their friends and relations to take all the difficult talk to a therapist, there has to be more than the professional listeners who know how to have a mutually impactful beautiful, tender conversation. This is a book for everyone. You feel held by it. Kathryn is so on the button I actually feel listened to by reading it ... We all need meaningful connection in our lives, Kathryn guides us towards this' Philippa Perry 'Kathryn Mannix is our modern-day prophet ... This is an essential book for anyone interested in themselves and their fellow humans' Greg Wise 'Kathryn Mannix is a natural born storyteller, and there is so much wisdom, tenderness and love packed into this profoundly beautiful book. It is not so much a guide to conversations as a manual for how to live - with kindness and open-heartedness guiding our interactions with others. Her words brim with grace. I loved this book so very much.' Rachel Clarke 'This is a beautiful book and I found almost every page taught me something in a gentle, but powerful way. I often found myself putting the book down and going 'wow' and thinking how I couldn't wait to put into practise some of the things I'd learnt' Annalisa Barbieri (Guardian columnist)