Martin Buber and Dialogical Psychotherapy

This article has a quadruple thrust: first, to present Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue; second, to give a full account of Maurice Friedman’s 10 elements of Dialogical Psychotherapy; third, to portray Martin Buber’s influence on the theory and practice of several psychotherapists and psychoanalysts; and thus to depict the growing range of what the author calls the Dialogical Psychotherapy Movement. Accordingly, the article is divided into the following sections: an introduction; Buber’s “Life of Dialogue”; a definition of Dialogical Psychotherapy; a presentation of the elements of Dialogical Psychotherapy; two illustrations of Dialogical Psychotherapy in practice; a brief discussion of “Therapists of Dialogue,” who use some of the elements of Dialogical Psychotherapy without making “healing through meeting” central; three sections on therapists who do make healing through meeting central, namely, Dialogical Psychotherapists proper, Relational Psychoanalysts, and Contextual (intergenerational family) Therapists; and a conclusion that briefly summarizes the article and the significance of the Dialogical Psychotherapy Movement.