Communication and Personal Relationships

This book offers new and compelling insights into the ways in which communication is central to the study of personal relationships. Specifically, this volume focuses on front-line cutting-edge theories and methods in the study of communication and personal relationships. The opening chapter of this volume plunges straight into investigating the question "What is a personal relationship?", the central issue facing personal relationship research. The answers offered in this volume highlight the role of communication as a means of expressing a relationship as well as it being the essential substance of the relationship. The authors in this volume focus on different aspects of relationships and explain them in different ways. Some of the aspects covered are: relationships as stories relationship life cycles cross-sex relationships obsessive relational intrusion and stalking interpersonal relationships and mental health problems social networks a dialectical view of relationships face and facework This volume provides a useful reference for professionals whose research and/or teaching focuses on communication and personal relationships. This book is also intended for advanced students in courses on communication and/or close relationships. Communication and Personal Relationships is one of a series of paperbacks dedicated to the study and application of processes by which individuals relate to each other in social and family settings. Each book provides an expanded and up-to-date version of a section in the original Handbook of Personal Relationships (second edition) edited by Steve Duck. See inside for details of each book.