Book Review
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion
by Marshall B. Rosenberg
Puddledancer Press, 1999
Reviewed by Stephanie Mattei
New Jersey USA
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 20 No. 3, May-June 2003, p. 109
An international peace activist,
Marshall Rosenberg, PhD, has spent a lifetime developing, practicing,
and teaching communication skills in some of the most war-torn places
on earth. This astonishing and eye-opening book describes how his method
of "nonviolent communication" works.
The basic idea is to connect
with one another in ways that foster compassion as a motivation to constructive
dialogue. The opposite of nonviolent communication is dialogue that
seeks to awaken fear, guilt, blame, or shame in the child.
Nonviolent communication
is based on two fundamentals:
1) We can coach ourselves
to be aware of and honestly express our own feelings, needs, and requests
without blame, criticism, or condemnation. We can only do this after
we make a specific, clear, and factual observation not mingled with
personal judgments or opinions.
2) We can respond with empathy
to other people, even if it means disregarding blame or criticism and
looking past the words and behavior of the other person in order to
identify his or her unmet needs.
Marshall Rosenberg bases
his model on the premises that all human beings are simply trying to
get their needs met, and that violence in any form is a tragic expression
of unmet needs. This is a marked departure from some judgmental attitudes
that tend to label children or adults as whining, uncooperative, or
aggressive. This author urges a more compassionate approach.
Empathy empowers people to
find common ground without compromising their own needs. When people
(including children) act rude, angry, or offensive, they are really
voicing their unmet needs at that particular moment. The loving and
compassionate response even to obnoxious words and behavior is to look
beyond the rudeness to find the unmet needs. Nonviolent communication
helps us see the humanity in the person whose behavior we would have
otherwise interpreted as aggressive and harmful, and to hear the cry
for help in the child who is misbehaving.
This compassionate response
is justified and supported by his revolutionary approach that says people
naturally enjoy contributing to the well being of others when compassion-rather
than fear, guilt, blame, or shame-is the motivation. For parents, this
has widespread implications for the way to motivate children to good
behavior. Rather than focusing on the misbehavior, parents are encouraged
to respond to the unmet need that is really being communicated by the
child's behavior. Faced with an angry or rude child, a parent would
respond with love and empathy, and not project anger back on the child.
Because of the connection
it fosters between people, nonviolent communication offers a bridge
between attachment parenting and parenting the older child. Rosenberg's
book helps parents learn the principle and techniques of nonviolent
commmunication, which just might help parents keep a strong connection
with their children as they grow.
Last updated 11/17/06 by jlm.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:29:49 UTC 2007.
