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9:27am June 22, 2014
Anonymous asked: What's non-violent communication? (I mean, I know the words, but it sounds like it's referring to a concept/special way of communicating)

It’s almost like a trademarked form of communication that people are taught in all kinds of mental hospital/social work/etc. type settings.  The idea is that it’s somehow less violent to communicate in certain ways, but it actually actively prevents people from being able to say important things, so it becomes quite violent in its own way.

There’s a lot of elements to it, but the one I remember the most was that we were no longer allowed to say “You did ______” we had to say “When you ______ I feel ________” which always turns it back on your own feelings.  I’ve also seen people sincerely try to use it in conflict resolution and get steamrollered by the other side because basically the response is “You feel that way?  Okay, oh well, I don’t care.”

Notes:
  1. hopefullyhuman reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  2. arctic-hands reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  3. fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  4. natalunasans said: my problem with this thing is i can’t frikin remember to even use it. when i’m trying to say something i just say whatever comes out and i’m lucky if it makes sense, let alone follows rules. so i never even got to the point of it being problematic.
  5. hazeybluesoul reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    It helps my son because he is already defensive. It doesn’t add to to the feeling that he must be on the defensive and...
  6. fostby said: trying to do communication “right” in that way has messed me up wrt my own scrupulosity issues. I get so bogged down in “not doing it wrong” that I don’t know how to actually, kindly get my point across :/
  7. withasmoothroundstone posted this