Since the relationships among theory, research, and pedagogy often are not clearly explicated in the literature on communication in the helping professions, this paper seeks to remedy the situation by exploring these relationships. Part I presents the general perspectives and orientations that are used to study and explain communicating in helping relationships. Part II reviews selected research findings on messaging and patterns of communicating. Part III presents an instructional approach for a course about communication in the helping professions. Throughout the paper, the discipline of speech-language pathology is used as an exemplar of how communication in helping relationships has been studied. (Author/RL)