Heidi,
I want to agree with you. Hendrix makes good points regarding staying the course: "Whatever comes up in a relationship should be responded to with the dialogue process." Upon continuing dialogue, Hendrix says his: "You will "understand" his/her point of view, even though you may disagree with it." This is an important concept within conversation to be certain one is not in the conversation merely to persuade the other person to his/her singular point of view, but rather also to truly understand the other person.
With lots of reflection on this article though, I believe Hendrix makes a bold statement: "The process is the solution to everything in a relationship.". He supports this line in that a relationship can go from "dangerous to safe." Here, Hendrix makes me take a difficult look a extreme cases and what type of message is being delivered. Is Hendrix supporting the idea that an individual in a severely dangerous situation 'remain in the canoe' with a potentially harmful person? Dialogue could be maintained with physical separation for safety, but the analogy of close-quarter physical location in a canoe may encourage a risky unfolding of this process.