DIALOGISM AND COMMUNICATION: TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF DIALOGUE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY 61-76

Abstract

In this brief article, we aim to explore the ethics of dialogue with regard to psychotherapy. To start, we will examine the contributions of the school of Palo Alto to communication theory and its implications for psychotherapy. Secondly, we will consider how Martin Buber's late philosophy may be essential to ethical dialogue in psychotherapy. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how Paul Watzlawick and Martin Buber's dialogism converge to teach us the ethics of dialogue/communication. Throughout their lives, both authors were dedicated to psychotherapy and sought to provide a model for how healthy communication between two people could look. Additionally, we will explore how Martin Heidegger's concepts from the Zollikon Seminars may be beneficial to psychotherapy. Moreover, we will argue that our daily gestures play a critical role in the development of dialogue, drawing on Vilem Flusser's ideas. Finally, we will present our own interpretation, which relates to the primordiality of the personal relationship and the idea that the relation unfolds like a game, without imposition from either speaker.