Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Israeli philosopher Martin Buber proposed that the authenticity required for growth cannot be created in a therapist-patient relationship, as there is a power dynamic created through providing a paid service, and the subsequent withholding of personal feelings and experiences from the professional. This idea deeply resonated with Rosenberg, who was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and inauthentic with the power disparity present in his own psychotherapy practice.

Based on Buber’s ideas, Rosenberg began to bring more of his authentic self into his psychotherapy practice; he revealed his own feelings and needs to patients while also paraphrasing and reflecting back the patients’ needs according to the principles of NVC. This approach was hugely successful in terms of patients’ reported growth, self-discovery, and authentic connection during the sessions. Rosenberg, who identified an overreliance on diagnosis in modern psychiatric medicine, preferred to empathetically connect with patients and to find ideas based on that connection about what the patient is needing to enrich their life.

Rosenberg was involved with the establishment and administration of a school established to educate students deemed disruptive or otherwise problematic; these students had been expelled or asked to leave other schools. In the school’s early stages, it was difficult for teachers being trained in NVC to distinguish these practices from being overly permissive to disruptive or problematic behavior, and the school was becoming increasingly chaotic; both teachers and students were struggling to tolerate immense disruption and demonstratively disobedient behavior in classrooms.

Rosenberg conducted a meeting with a handful of students at the school to generate ideas about how students’ behaviors could be managed to ensure that learning could take place. One student, Joe suggested using sticks to beat the children, believing that only this punitive approach could yield the desired goal. Rosenberg expressed that he didn’t agree with this sort of solution, because it only begets further violence and would cause students to feel unsafe at their school. Will, another student involved, eventually generated another idea that ended up being a success: a “do-nothing room,” where students could go if they didn’t feel like learning, so as to not disrupt the learning of others (168). This conversation illustrates the way that, through conversation designed to find compassionate solutions to serve individuals’ needs, successful solutions can be found that will yield better relationships than solutions that rely on punitive discipline and manipulative behavior.