Dialogue has become a pivotal concept within contemporary humanstudies, yet few theorists explore its temporal dimension. Is dialogue an extended state of high quality mutuality? Or does it exist in important yet ephemeral moments of human meeting? This article reports on the contributions to communication theory that emerge from a close reading of a metadialogic conversational "text "-the landmark 1 957 meeting of Martin Buber and Carl Rogers. Although most commentators have described Buber and Rogers as disagreeing sharply, we argue that a coherent Buber-Rogers position emerged from their dialogue. Buber and Rogers, in their informal theoretical collaboration, theorize that mutuality-and, by extension, dialogue-is possible in role-unequal relationships in moments of meeting. We then discuss how this Buber-Rogers position prefigured the contemporary cultural tenor of postmodernism. Although not postmodernists themselves, Buber and Rogers helped to shape an intellectual climate in which key postmodern themes could flourish.Dialogue must be understood as something taking part in the very historical nature of human beings. . . . Dialogue is a moment where humans meet to reflect on their reality as they make and remake it. Something else: To the extent that we are communicative beings who communicate to each other as we become more able to transform our reality, we are able to know that we know, which is something more than just knowing. . . . Knowing is a social event with nevertheless an individual dimension. What is dialogue in this moment of communication, knowing and social transformation? Dialogue seals the relationship between the cognitive subjects, the subjects who know, and who try to know.Paulo Freire (Shor & Freire, 1987, pp. 98-99) The Brazilian educator and dialogic theorist Paulo Freire shows how dialogue is a relation of co-constituted mutuality that exists in a matter of moments. Although dialogue necessarily involves separate persons, it is not an individualistic process. Although its 63

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among patients' perceptions of their physicians' communicative behavior during the informed consent interview, the patient's feeling of being confirmed by the physician and satisfied with care delivered by the physician, and the patient's decision to participate in a clinical trial or not. Respondents included 130 cancer patients who were eligible for a clinical trial and who had recently discussed trial participation with their physicians. Results indicated that a linear combination of the variables physician affiliative style, physician dominant or controlling style, patient satisfaction, patient confirmation, patient preference for decision making, patient desire for information, and patient age discriminate between patients who agree to participate in clinical trials and patients who refuse to participate. Physicians' affiliative communicative behaviors and patient satisfaction were clearly important to patients who agreed to participate. Motivations for patients who declined to participate in trials were less clear. Implications for physicians who offer clinical trials to their patients are that specific communication skills may enhance their patients' satisfaction and may help increase enrollment in clinical trials.

Evidence contrary to the widely held view that groups move through discernible developmental phases is analyzed in detail. Definitional issues relating to "phases in group development " and "group types " are considered. Reviews and thirteen studies (to 1981) cited by others as not supporting the existence of developmental trends are mterpreted in this context. Methodological and conceptual problems are noted. The negative evidence as such does not seem persuasive. It ts concluded that researchers' attention should no longer be devoted to trying to provide a yes or no answer to the question "Do groups change?" but rather to identifying significant differences and similarities in group development among various groups and types of groups, and to relating variations in developmental processes to important group outcomes.

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This study offers an understanding of human dialogue by examining a 1957 conversation between two of this century's leading proponents of dialogue, philosopher Martin Buber and psychologist Carl Rogers. The study assumes that this conversation was a dialogue (as those principally involved said it was) and asks what we can learn about dialogue through a study of this one instance. We conduct and report a close analysis of the conversation. For all the difficulties caused by the roles assigned to Buber and Rogers, the presence of two silent audiences, and the interpersonal styles of the men themselves, and despite the encounter not matching some idealized conceptions ofdialogue, this study demonstrates that dialogue is not an 'ideal possibility seldom realized" but a concretely realizable and practical accomplishment.