Relational dialectics

Relational dialectics is an interpersonal communication theory about close personal ties and relationships that highlights the tensions, struggles and interplay between contrary tendencies. The theory, proposed respectively by Leslie Baxter and W. K. Rawlins in 1988, defines communication patterns between relationship partners as the result of endemic dialectical tensions.

In their description of Relational Dialectics, Leslie A. Baxter and Barbara M. Montgomery simplify the concept by posing “opposites attract”, but “birds of a feather flock together”. Also, “Two’s company; three’s a crowd” but “the more the merrier.” These contradictions experienced within common folk proverbs are similar to those we experience within our relationships as individuals. When making decisions, we give voice to multiple viewpoints and desires that often contradict each other.

The Relational Dialectic is an elaboration on Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea that life is an open monologue and humans experience collisions between opposing desires and needs within relational communications. Baxter includes a list of Dialectical Tensions that reminds us that relationships are constantly changing, and that successful and satisfying relationships require constant attention. Although Baxter’s description of Relational Dialectics is thorough, it by no means is exact or all inclusive since we all experience different tensions in different ways.

Relational Dialectics is the emotional and value-based version of the philosophical Dialectic. It is rooted in the dynamism of the Yin and Yang. Like the classic Yin and Yang, the balance of emotional values in a relationship is always in motion, and any value pushed to its extreme contains the seed of its opposite.

In the Western world, these ideas hark back to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who held that the world was in constant flux (like fire), with creative and destructive forces on both sides of every process. Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian scholar most known for his work in dialogism, applied Marxist dialectic to literary and rhetorical theory and criticism. He illustrated the tensions that exists in the deep structure of all human experience. For example, he identified that the tension that exists between unity and difference. Bakhtin conceived the human dialectic as two forces analogous to the physical forces centripetal (emotional forces tending towards unity) and centrifugal (emotional forces tending towards divergence). Like the Yin and Yang, Bakhtin's forces have no ultimate resolution.

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