What is Dialogue Therapy

Intimate and other relationships in the 21st century present unique demands regarding equality, authenticity, reciprocity, and accurate witnessing. All adults who are in equal relationships – spouses, partners, siblings, grown children, parents, friends, co-workers – are stressed by the demands of equity and equality. Leaders, teachers, and managers are also stressed. People in all walks of life want to be seen and heard accurately instead of being misperceived, due to bias, indifference or stereotypes.

Many people avoid conflicts in these circumstances because they can become so painful and unrewarding that they become emotionally threatening and dangerous. However, decisions and negotiations cannot take place without effective and respectful conflict. In intimate relationships, destructive conflict or the avoidance of conflict also undermines trust. Transformative and respectful conflict between equals restores trust, and between intimate partners or grown children and their parents, it allows for the deepening of love.

Negotiating differences of desires, styles, opinions, beliefs, and preferences, while remaining emotionally open to Created originally by Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. and Ed Epstein in the mid-1980s, Polly has continued to develop the method and its meaning. She has published three books about it and a fourth one is in the works. Hags and Heroes (1984), You’re Not What I Expected (1993), and now Love Between Equal: Relationship as a Spiritual Path (2019) help couples and therapists use Dialogue Therapy and benefit from its discoveries.

There are two clinical models for Dialogue Therapy: (1) solo therapist with couple and (2) co-therapists with couple. Both models are presented and practiced in detail at the Foundational Training.