Bernhard Poerksen is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He has a particular research interest in the new media age and has written about systemic thinking. His most recent book publication in English is Digital Fever: Taming the Big Business of Disinformation (2022).

Friedemann Schulz von Thun is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hamburg. Germany. He became widely known for his trilogy Miteinander reden (Let's Talk!), which has long been considered a standard work in the field of communication. Since 2007, he has directed the Schulz von Thun Institute for Communication. His bestselling books are among the most widely read works of psychology in the German-speaking countries.

Praise for the German Edition

Preface

The Dialogic Principle: A Preface by Bernhard Poerksen

I. The Big Questions

1. The Communication Square

Searching for the key sentence

The power of the receiver

Hermeneutics of the listener

In praise of misunderstanding

History of an idea

Of humans and machines

Application of a model

2. Maxims of Comprehensibility

The practice of parody

The four comprehensibility dimensions

Karl Popper's taunts

The three-world typology

The limits of communication

3. Vicious Circles and Relationship Dynamics

No beginning and no end

Victims and perpetrators

Power comes from obedience

No more either-or

The simultaneity of different things

Autonomy and dependence

The double focus

Theory and biography

4. The Ideal of Congruence

The narcissistic dilemma

The primal need of the soul

Abraham Maslow's rant

Maximum and optimum authenticity

True to self and situation

The situation model

Higher-order sovereignty

From norm to option

Leading a congruent life

5. Communication with the Inner Self

The parallelism proposition

Self-paralysis and self-sabotage

The charisma puzzle

Stages of self-clarification

A pluralism-friendly attitude

Against exile

The power of metaphor

6. The Values Square and Views of Human Nature

The third quality

A guide to dialectical thinking

Farewell to one-sidedness

Varieties of integration

Human nature

Freedom and conditionability

Stanley Milgram's experiment

II. The Concrete Questions

1. Communication Psychology for Managers and Executives

Double-vision consultancy

Triple pressure

The integral leader

Higher-order compromise

The values square as feedback square

Explicit and implicit meta-communication

Competition means dependence

2. Communication Psychology for Teachers

Freedom and coercion

One child's school experience

The construction of self-images

Training the swan perspective

3. Communication Psychology and the Construction of Reality in Intercultural Communication

The ambiguous kiss

Justifying the norm

First- and second-order reality

Understanding versus refutation

III. The Last Questions

1. Happiness and Death

The end of communication

Self-determination and acceptance of fate

Vicious and virtuous circles

The certainty of uncertainty

Searching for Congruence in Communication and Life: An Afterword by Friedemann Schulz von Thun

Selected Bibliography

About the Authors