Listening is healing, listening is love

Richard Flanagan, a marvellous writer, describes in his recently published memoir Question 7 how he was the favourite of his grandmother Mate. Her smell repelled him, and he didn’t like the way she “lorded it” over her daughter, Flanagan’s mother. He writes:

“I was Mate’s favourite. I don’t know why. It was clear that religion, which in her old age mattered greatly, was of no interest to me. Nor was I a remarkable child in any sense. Among her numerous grandchildren—I have over fifty first cousins—many were far more vivacious, attractive, charming, clever, athletic and interesting. But when she told me things I listened.”

Flanagan’s paragraph is contradictory in that he writes at the beginning that he doesn’t know why he was Mate’s favourite but then in the last sentence he tells us why: “But when she told me things I listened.” There is no greater gift than to be listened to. The “more vivacious, attractive, charming, clever, athletic and interesting” were too caught up with themselves to listen.

I talked about Flanagan’s relationship with his grandmother this morning with a colleague, and she told me of friends of hers who have a plaque on their wall that says: “Everybody needs a good listening to.” And everybody does.

But the traumatised, the oppressed, the marginalised may be unable to speak. Words won’t come. We should sit with them and wait, listen to the silence until they can speak.

We all know—or we should—the healing power of being listened to, but we still don’t listen. We haven’t time. Doctors don’t have time. Studies of how quickly patients interrupt patients find that the median time is 11 seconds. Nobody feels listened to in 11 seconds. General practitioners in Britain have 10-15 minutes per patient, and they might see 20 patients in a surgery. If they fall behind the patients who are waiting must wait longer. Everything can get out of control. The unstated question in the doctors’ minds is “How can I get this patient out the door in 10 minutes?”

Hairdressers and homeopaths have more time to listen, explaining perhaps why a visit to them is often much more satisfactory than a visit to a doctor. And psychoanalysis may be scientific junk, but an hour a day three days a week of being listened to will cure many. “Un huh,” is all the psychoanalysts need to say for their £80 an hour.

We interrupt because we mistakenly think people want answers, solutions. I’ve been making this mistake most days for 50 years. But often there are no answers. Why did this happen? Why me? Why now? What does it mean? What will happen? Why are we here? What’s the point? We have no answers, but still we can listen.

Our motives may not be pure, but if we listen rather than speak it may not matter. Flanagan listened to his grandmother because she told good stories. He didn’t know he would become a famous writer, but some part of him was already collecting stories.

Listening is love, listening is healing. We know it, but most of us (or do I mean me?) forget. We cannot hold back the words, the proffered solutions—but we must. We must simply listen.