Why is it called "Nonviolent" Communication?

I'm not violent!

I train parents in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) also called compassionate communication or heart-centered communication.

I decided to coach other parents, because when my teen daughter was struggling with behavioral issues, our family went down so many pathways trying to get mental health support including: wilderness therapy, residential therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, hospital stays, psychiatry, and a seemingly endless rotation of medications. It took so long for us to find a modality that truly helped, and yet, when I started to share our story with other parents, to speak openly about the what that made a difference for us, I realized almost no one has heard of NVC.

NVC is a communication framework developed by clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960s. When Rosenberg was a child and lived in Detroit, he witnessed horrible violence fueled by systemic racism, segregation, and intense economic competition. Over 3 days, 34 people were killed, nearly 700 injured, and significant Black-owned property was destroyed. The U.S. Army was called in to “restore order.”

Ever since that experience, Rosenberg wanted to understand the roots of violence. He had to know why even under the most trying circumstances, some people kill while others respond with compassion. Rosenberg was very much inspired by Ghandi who used the term “nonviolent” to describe his work, because that description was the closest literal translation he found to the Sanskrit word: ahimsa. In Sanskrit, naming a concept through negation instead of directly suggests the concept is too great to be named.

So that’s why Rosenberg named his framework “nonviolent” communication. He studied the ways we use language, how our thoughts and words can lead to more compassion, connection, and humanity. NVC focuses on what we’re feeling, identifying the universal needs beneath those feelings, and learning how to express that honestly while staying connected to the humanity of others.

NVC teaches that all human behavior is motivated by an attempt to meet needs including needs for physical well-being (food, shelter, sleep); connection (acceptance, belonging, to be seen and heard, to matter); needs for autonomy (choice, freedom, agency); honesty (authenticity, integrity).

We mostly get into conflicts over our strategies to meet our needs. NVC teaches us how to look for the needs underneath behavior, and then, to come up with creative, collaborative ways to meet those needs.

It is these insights that changed how I was able to relate to and support my daughter. Does that make sense to you? Please comment questions you have about NVC or reactions to the term “nonviolent.”