Center for Non-Violent Communication

[BlindPig]

Just curious as to whether or not anyone has ever heard or been in contact with these guys. I just went through a training with them, and it was the most worthless three hours of my life.

 

[arnisador]

There are lots of places that go by that name (e.g., here). Which one do you mean? What type of seminar was it supposed to have been?

 

[sgtmac_46]

Just curious as to whether or not anyone has ever heard or been in contact with these guys. I just went through a training with them, and it was the most worthless three hours of my life.

Three hours of polyannic wishful thinking?

 

[Floating Egg]

I purchased Marshall B. Rosenberg's book on Nonviolent Communication a number of years ago, and at the time it was a revelation. I immediately started implementing its principles and actively sought out other practitioners. This continued for a good year or so.

Today, I'm not as wild about Nonviolent Communication as I was, though I still use many of its principles. One of the problems that I found with Rosenberg's approach to communication is that it's almost like learning a different language.

Unfortunately, it became quite difficult for me to make use of his techniques in a fast paced office environment because when conflicts arose I was just about the only person willing to resolve them. It's pretty hard to talk to people when they walk away from you or throw in a "talk to the hand" gesture.

I did find that the Nonviolent Communication techniques worked better with family members and friends, probably because they cared about what I had to say and they wanted to see everything come to a nice conclusion.

Overall, I'd say that Nonviolent Communication is a bit impractical, but there are some elements that are fairly reasonable, and if you do a little research into communication, many of them carry over to other approaches.

 

[TonyM.]

I prefer the book "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty." by Dr. Manuel Smith
You can utilize the techniques immediately.

 

[Phil Elmore]

Some sort of commie-simp-pacifist thing?

 

[Floating Egg]

Some sort of commie-simp-pacifist thing?

I'm not really sure how Nonviolent Communication relates to a socio-economic system. As the name implies, it's a form of communication.

Since non-violence is at the heart of the program, I suppose it could be associated with pacifism, but only in the sense that war is preferable to peace.

 

[sgtmac_46]

They lost me at "It is a process of empathy and honesty, and is sometimes described as “the language of the heart.” It would probably be cheaper just to rent old episodes of "The Care Bears".

In all seriousness, the whole program is based on a HUGE assumption (an assumption prevalent among most highly empathetic people). That assumption is, that everyone, at their core, is a needy, empathetic person trying to get out. That's a dangerous assumption and accounts for a wide variety of problems encountered by highly empathetic people. Some people are NOT highly empathetic, and prefer to engage in Up/Down transactions. If you're trying to use "Non-Violent Communication" with those people, then you're going to lose and lose big.

 

[Floating Egg]

Yes, I agree, which is why it's not practical. I care about other people, but that seems to have very little bearing on those that don't.