Mentoring and Nurturing Communication in Health Contexts: A Special Issue of health Communication

Mentoring and nurturing are interactive processes, and they affect both the participants in the process and others who interact--actually or potentially--with them. Thus, it is important to examine behavior and perception, and to include the perspectives of participants and observers. This special issue emphasizes the importance of the call to theorize nurturing and mentoring behavior in health care settings. The editors provide not only applications and confirmations of theory to areas that have traditionally been atheoretical to a large degree, but also extensions of those theories. This book provides both a wealth of theory and method to help our understanding of this process, and a wealth of ideas for scholars to pursue.