non-violent communication

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a communication approach developed by Marshall Rosenberg based on the principle that all human beings share the same fundamental needs and that conflict arises when those needs are not being met and when people make demands or judgments rather than expressing themselves from a place of needs-awareness; NVC proposes a four-part framework for expressing oneself and empathically receiving others: observation without evaluation, identification and expression of feelings, recognition of the underlying needs that produce those feelings, and making specific actionable requests rather than demands; the approach has been applied in conflict resolution, therapeutic relationships, schools, workplaces, prisons, and international mediation; critics note that NVC's individualistic psychological framing can depoliticise structural conflicts, treating as communication problems what may require political and legal solutions