Main description:

*Immensely helpful bestseller with over 150,000 in print, revised and updated: 35% new material includes more attention to digital communication and more inclusive examples.
*With empathy, wit, and years of experience as therapists, the authors provide advice that readers can put to immediate use.
*Addresses both the positives (new ways to sustain connections) and the negatives (perpetual distractions) of digital media.
*Explores ways to foster understanding across differences--gender, race, religion, politics--a critical issue today.
*Beyond general readers, it is used by an array of helping professionals and as a supplemental course text, and is well reviewed.

Contents:

Introduction
I. The Yearning to Be Understood
1. "Did You Hear What I Said?": Why Listening Is So Important
2. "Thanks for Listening": How Listening Shapes Us and Connects Us to Each Other
3. "Why Don't People Listen?": How Communication Breaks Down
II. The Real Reasons People Don't Listen
4. "When Is It My Turn?": The Heart of Listening--The Struggle to Suspend Our Own Needs
5. "You Hear Only What You Want to Hear": How Hidden Assumptions Prejudice Listening
6. "Why Do You Always Overreact?": How Emotionality Makes Us Defensive
III. Getting Through to Each Other
7. "Take Your Time--I'm Listening": How to Let Go of Your Own Needs and Listen
8. "I Never Knew You Felt That Way": Empathy Begins with Openness
9. "I Can See This Is Really Upsetting You": How to Defuse Emotional Reactivity
IV. Listening in Context
10. "It Takes Two to Tango": Listening Between Intimate Partners
11. "Nobody Around Here Ever Listens to Me!": How to Listen and Be Heard within the Family
12. "I Knew You'd Understand": Being Able to Hear Friends and Colleagues
13. "I'm Not Wasting My Time Talking to That Person!": How to Listen to People It's Impossible to Agree With
Epilogue