The five dimensions of Bohm's dialogue

Abstract

In the past few years, we have witnessed an interest for dialogue in many disciplines such as education, psychology, women's studies, sociology, management, etc. The popularity of dialogue, in the form proposed by physicist David Bohm, has spread in many of these disciplines. However, this enhanced popularity also gave rise to a greater confusion surrounding the practice of dialogue. The first part of this chapter will describe the two strategies usually adopted to deal with the confusion surrounding the practice of Bohm's dialogue. The first strategy consists in presenting and practicing dialogue in a way that makes it simpler by focusing on only one or two of its dimensions. This strategy is called narrowing dialogue. A counterpart to this tendency is the attachment to a model. The persons adopting this strategy consider as complete the description of dialogue given in Bohm's texts and therefore the practice of dialogue must conform to the description without regard to the environment. The forces underlying these strategies will be explored as well as the consequences on the development and spreading of dialogue. In an attempt to clarify the practice and to find a common ground amongst the practitioners of Bohm's dialogue, the second part of this chapter proposes a descriptive model of dialogue which brings to the fore its five most important dimensions. These dimensions, which came out of empirical data and of Bohm's writings, include dialogue as conversation, as inquiry, as creation of a shared meaning, as a participatory process and as a collective meditation. Each of these dimensions is explained and tensions and paradoxes amongst the dimensions are brought to light. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.