Center for Collaborative Communication

THE CENTER FOR COLLABORATIVE COMMUNICATION shares the skills and consciousness of compassionate, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with Brooklyn and all five boroughs of New York, offering workshops as well as coaching, mediation, couples counselling, empathy/support groups, and organizational development and support based on the principles and skills of Nonviolent Communication. While committed to sharing NVC broadly, the CCC is especially interested in making NVC skills available to those engaged in progressive social change, education, and the arts.

Nonviolent Communication was developed by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. during the civil rights period. In developing NVC, Rosenberg was fascinated with a basic question: What causes human beings to enjoy profound connection and caring for each other and, at other times, disconnection and conflict? In answering this question, Rosenberg studied psychology and later worked with the humanist psychologist Carl Rogers. He also studied Gandhian principles of Nonviolence.

After years of study and experience, he developed what’s become known as Nonviolent Communication(sm). NVC is now taught around the world, supported by the international nonprofit Center for Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org). For more about NVC, see the February 2004 interview with Marshall Rosenberg at www.thesunmagazine.org.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a consciousness and skill which affirms that human beings share common, universal values and needs (such as autonomy, community, and choice) and a desire to see these needs met. By focusing on shared values and then moving on to strategies, we can find solutions that are more satisfying, effective, and empowering.

NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION IS BASED ON THE PREMISE THAT: We are all trying to get our needs met We fare better if we know how to get these needs met in a cooperative rather than aggressive way Each of us has remarkable inner resources that we can access if we are given empathy

THE NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION PROCESS INCLUDES: Stating our observation of an interaction without judgment or evaluation; Expressing our feeling, not our thought, in relation to our observations; Expressing what we need/value in relation to our feelings; Presenting our requests in doable, positive, action language and distinguishing between requests and demands.

SERVICES OFFERED BY THE CCC: Introductory and advanced workshops and practice groups on Nonviolent Communication NVC-based coaching, empathy and counseling Empathy/Support Groups focused on specific topics and concerns Mediation services for individuals, couples, families and organizations Organizational support including staff training, needs assessment, mediation, and strategic planning.

Dian Killian, PhD, the Director of Brooklyn NVC, is a Certified Trainer with the international Center for Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org) and is co-author of Connecting across Differences: A Guide to Compassionate, Nonviolent Communication.