Nonviolent Communication

Nonviolent Communication

• Viewing communication not as a competition but as a collaboration
• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
• Taught using scripts
• Active listening
• Observe/ Feel / Need / Request
• The script is just a teaching tool rather than the words you use
• Emotions are a response to thoughts
• Separating thoughts and emotions
• Make a request, accepting that the answer may be no
• You can do it without the scripts
• If people have limited cognitive empathy, can be a hard method to use

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

• With self
• What am I feeling?
• Identify thoughts behind that feeling
• Try to modulate the feeling by adding cognitively balancing thoughts
• Recognize that you may be leaving out important information; Fill out your emotional spectrum and balance it out
• You might have a fixation on one emotion; Often when we think that our thoughts are causing something; They are actually a rationalization after the fact. "I might just be angry because chemicals." We act differently based on the emotions we have. Be mindful of the emotions for what we do next.
• We store emotional energy in our body.

John Gottam's Love Lab

• Record newlywed couples in apartment
• Predict over 90% accuracy whether a newly wed couple would be together 5 years later

4 horseman of the apocalypse : damage marriage

Criticism

attacking someone's character complaint OK, but avoid "who you are because what you done"

Defensiveness

Hear the other person fully, before going back into any defenses/responses

Stonewalling

Shutting down and not responding to the other person, denying person humanity and relevant

Contempt

Outwardly expressing disapproval of who someone is

What worked

• Did make complaints often, but
• More often they would compliment each other
• Talk about when they were happy
• Maintaining healthy baseline
• When complaints happen, body language turn toward them, rather than away

Discussion

How do we have the full ability to do this online?

• Am I using word that's more judgemental? or collaborative?

Model of emotion - group therapy developed for activists

• questioned wither he could treat emotional problems activists were having, can you separate it from the social ills?
• at a micro level, can the group actively cultivate something vs. trying to solve the social thing around it
• body of emotions; repeated emotions have an effect on our body; must work with the body to work with emotional stuff because they are part of the body
• Stick with the "what" and "how", rather than analyzing in real time

what happens when "the introduction of feelings breaks all the things"

• Tone is really important, striving for a better tone can be really beneficial
  • when tone becomes a method of invalidated
  • tremendous tool for destruction
  • tone is not an excuse for invalidation, but a tool of invalidation
  • it can be a tool for building relationships, connection
• Neurodiversity introduces the need to build more specific mental models of who you're interacting with and the state they're in when you're interacting with them
  • NVC can be difficult between, for example, aspies and non-aspies, if the non-aspie expects the aspie to behave neurotypically
  • Ozy Frantz writes about this sort of thing from the perspective of BPD; their blog is at https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/
    • https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/an-introduction-to-neurodiversity/
    • https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/on-medicalizing-mental-variation/
    • https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/what-its-like-having-borderline-personality-disorder/
    • https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/mental-health-awfulness-in-the-wake-of-the-newtown-shooting/

Refer to session notes Non Violent Communication for Neuroatypical