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Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Development Essay

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Relationship Development 1 Running Head: RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Development Relationship Development 2 Communication is the process of gathering meaning from the world around us and using verbal and non-verbal messages to share this meaning with others. (Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond, 2005) More specifically, interpersonal communication can be defined as; “a distinctive, transactual form of human communication involving mutual influence, usually for the purpose of managing relation ships.” (Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond, 2005, p. 6) Interpersonal communication is extremely complex and encompasses many different themes and issues that affect many aspects of our daily lives. These …show more content…

Though there are many interpersonal relationships of circumstance formed in the show House, people can be coworkers and/or have a patient-physician relationship without forming an interpersonal relationship. (Beebe et al. 2005) Dr. House is a perfect example of this. Dr. House may have a patient for weeks and not even so much as talk to them. The other doctors on the show talk to their patients and get to know them for the purpose of learning about their medical history. In doing this they usually find some common ground which forms the foundation for an interpersonal relationship. However, Dr. House avoids talking to his patients at all because he believes they just lie. While brainstorming about treatment options for a patient in the pilot episode, Dr. House says, “If we don’t talk to them (the patients) they can’t lie to us and we can’t lie to them.” (Jacobs K., Shore D., Attanasio P., Singer B., 2004) By choosing not to talk to his patients Dr. House forgoes any chance of developing an interpersonal relationship with his patients. On the other hand, Dr. Foreman, Dr. Chase, and Dr. Cameron usually form interpersonal relationships with every patient they treat. While these doctors do have to maintain a professional relationship, they also try to communicate with patients in an I- Relationship Development 5 thou manner rather than an I-It

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