Bad News, Good News : Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings

Rating:
Summary: Unnecesarily drawn out and tired.
Review: The bad news about this book is that there is a much shorter book inside it trying to get out. The good news is that much of the material is easily read through. My main problem with conversational analysis (CA) is its principled insistence on disconnecting analysis of spoken utterances from pyschological extrapolations. Consequently a lot of arguably fatuous observations are rarely bundled up and disposed of in a clean analytical fashion.

The substance in this book is that people reveal bad and good news differently, and of course react differently. Much of this is at best mildly interesting though, outside academic circles run on professional scepticism, hardly Earth shattering. In the case of bad news the author concludes that people like it to be signalled in advance so they can prime themselves somewhat. Being blunt is not wanted.

There is an interesting section contrasting the reactions of clients in a HIV testing clinic on been given either good or bad news. You could have knocked me down with a feather when it was revealed that clients that received the all clear were relieved and elated and almost chatty, whereas the infected were more 'stoical' and upset. I presume, fatalistic and angry is more in order. I must confess I found this sections a bit too voyeuristic for my tastes.

In a nutsheel, the book is a large collection vignettes of people's reaction to highs and lows. In my opinion it is unnecessarily long and the author could have drawn his conclusions together earlier and more quickly.

I am uncertain about the contribution to knowledge this type of exerecise produces. To maintain an identity CA has fought to decouple itself from formal linguistics and most of social psychology, who it is addressing and what its scientific objectives are, elude me.

I left this book, as I have left other CA books - completely unsure whether the whole enterprise is stuck in a thick fog of vagueness and subjectivity, or is on the threshold of something scientifically respectable. I am still unsure.

Rating:
Summary: A Natural history of bad and good news delivery.
Review: This book is the result of ten years of detailed research on real episodes of bad and good news delivery. Professor Maynard uses a rigorous (yet sensitive) interdisciplinary methodology (conversation analysis) to open up these delicate moments, so that we may better understand, and improve, how we convey bad news.

In the research literature on bad news delivery, few have the discipline and patience to study *real* episodes of bad news (as opposed to laboratory or other experimental simulations). In combining that analytic patience with years of experience as an internationally regarded scholar of human interaction, Professor Maynard has produced a work which sets the standard for future research on bad and good news delivery.

This book is a well written summary of research that has immediate practical applicability to any clinical or non-clinical realm where bad news must be delivered. I use it in the teaching of medical students, internal medicine and family medicine residents, and other clinicians. My students have found Professor Maynard's research informative, interesting, and (most importantly) useful.