Fostering interpersonal relationship: the counsellor's viewpoint

Abstract

Interpersonal relationship involves activities where two or more people need to communicate with one another. As human beings, we always come in contact with people and in the process, relate with them and sometimes react to their utterances and actions. Pathologies, maladaptive behaviours and most human problems probably arise because of communication failures and misinterpretation or misunderstood messages. Interpersonal communication involves a transaction between people and other people in the environment such as friends, family, children, co-workers and even strangers. The fact that man is likely to misunderstand his/her neighbour, to misinterpret his/her speech, to misconstrue the meaning of such speech and to mishear the attending body talk makes communication an important element in fostering interpersonal relationship. This is the focus of this paper.

The Nigerian Journal of Guidance and Counselling Vol. 9(1) 2004: 121-136