In 1951 psychiatrist Jürgen Ruesch and polymath Gregory Bateson published "Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry" within which was the first designation of the discipline of human communication. Their communication model took into account the complexity of curvilinear human interaction (three dimensional, multi-directional transactions, interpreting signs and symbols in language, or semiotics) and created four divisions of communication amenable to scientific study. These are intrapersonal communication (e.g., one's own thinking); interpersonal communication (e.g., conversation); group communication (e.g., a work team); and cultural communication (e.g., a global conference). Many scholars thus consider Jürgen Ruesch as a virtual founder of the modern human science discipline of communication. This volume collects his most influential articles in that discipline.