Nonviolent Communication: Applied Existentialism

The philosophical concepts within the Existential Humanist approach are abstract, and may be difficult for therapists to put into practice with clients.  Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a practical and skill-based conflict resolution method developed by Marshall Rosenberg, shares philosophical underpinnings with Existentialism and can thus be used as a tool to apply its concepts.  In particular, NVC promotes the Existential principles of “uniqueness,” “responsibility/choice” and the “I-thou relationship” by using language that represents our emotional experiences as arising within ourselves rather than as caused by another.  In this philosophy, no one else is responsible for our emotions, and we alone are tasked with the choice of how to respond to them.  We may then approach another and offer information about what we feel and need, not from a place of entitlement or sedimented roles, but as a means of connecting with another and honoring their autonomy.  NVC offers a bottom-up approach to understanding Existentialism, as by employing the method, participants experience firsthand how it evokes the phenomenological experience of the concepts within Existentialism.  Through this training, participants learn how to apply NVC within the therapeutic relationship, both in the here-and-now and as a tool to teach clients for use in their own lives.