I learned what non violent communication is a day ago and I’m using it to mend a friendship.
Have you however used it at the workplace?
I find it unpractical: there are so many things to do at the workplace and the last thing stressed people with deadlines need is to have a conversation about feelings, but maybe I’m wrong?
A question for nurses working bedside: do you actually use non violent communication at your ward with your patients and actually have time to do your other duties, like charting, preparing infusions and meds, dealing with providers, insurance, the alcoholic who fights you, the demented one who constantly tries to leave the unit, the one who wants to leave ama (against medical advice)?
I believe it’s valuable to recognize that the knee jerk reaction was a result of tone and not content. It’s the whole point of nonviolent communication to refer explicitly to facts and to address emotions directly in order to prevent “tone issues”. However, I never implied any form of moral responsibility over the malaise, mental or otherwise. Communication is a two party process, it’s not just what is given as communication by the sending party, it’s also about what the receiving party does with it, how it is interpreted. So the tone problem is a result of two people communicating, the one writing and the one reading, in this case.
You see, I worked psychological care three years with people in detention and learned that mental illness, with the affected person, is better to address it directly without euphemisms or roundabouts. Most people (not all, just most) who end in detention, have or develop mental illness, many of which are personality disorders. These disorders mean people who have them don’t react too well to any sign that you’re hiding thoughts or secretly passing judgement of their conditions. So I did just that, actually debated over replying and wrote my reply with intent and complete transparency over my feelings and thoughts about the comment. Apologies if my intentions didn’t land, but they don’t come from a place of ill will or bad faith. Quite the opposite. Here’s my rationale.
If you are punched in the face that is, inequivocally, violence. If you insult a person calling them names or threatening to hurt them that is violence. If you do the opposite, being honest, direct and transparent with emotions, then that is almost impossible to be construed as violence. Most people know this intuitively. As you can see by other comments in this very post, most people find it baffling that you have to explain to other human beings that using insults or threats is a form of violence. However, the OC called nonviolent communication violence. How is that? Well, typically, most people understand the relationship of words, interactions and violence from a place of empathy. The ability to imagine and feel what others would feel like in such situations. To consider intentionally nonviolent communication as violence, one must dissociate actions from emotions. This is only possible if one either, can disconnect empathy selectively, or cannot feel empathy at all. Both are strong traits of sociopathy. Violence is not defined by harm, emotional or otherwise, to others in the mind of sociopaths, but as a form of negative transactional process. Material loss and functional inconvenience to a special party, them. The emotional side is erased, because they can’t relate to it healthily. A sociopath doesn’t consider a punch to the face as violence, unless it is detrimental to them, personally. I need to remove a person, so I do. You hurt someone I care about, so I hurt you back. People are objects. No feelings involved. This is how nonviolent communication can become violent, because it disarms the typical instruments of sociopathic behavior. Manipulation, lying, backstabbing, gaslighting, intimidation, etc. are viable tools for the sociopath that carry no remorse. If you take away their tools with clear, direct, honest communications, you disarm the veil of concealment that enables sociopaths to thrive. Thus it is violent, against them. Also, consider the underlying insinuation that people who are kind and compassionate have a hidden agenda or are being secretly hyprocrites and manipulative themselves.
What to do with it? I learned that addressing the elephant in the room is the best policy. I clearly stated what was wrong, to suggest that proper, clear, honest and direct communication is violence is incorrect. “Your kindness is violent” sounds mad and nonsensical, because it is. I can offer further examples, if you look closer to the comment:
Separation of material actions and emotions. Dismissive of emotional consequences. Disconnect with other’s people emotional experiences. The term “actual violence” itself is troubling as it implies an objective definition of violence, which, by the way, implies that it is their definition, disregarding other’s subjective definitions, lived experiences or even socially normative definitions of violence.
Dismissal of emotional suffering as trivial or inconsequential.
Disregard for emotions and trivialization of sexual violence.
Normalization of rudeness, plus the insinuation of hidden agendas from people who are genuinely being nice.
This kind of statements are not opinions I have heard any mentally stable and sound of mind individuals make. But I heard them a lot, in detention, from mentally ill inmates. So, my choice was to be direct and speak my mind. Because I’d rather offend a mentally ill person but get them to seek help and be less of a threat to others around them than to ignore it and let someone with a harmful belief system continue to think that what they’re thinking is ok or normal. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I don’t mind to risk mistakes that hurts nobody if it carries the chance of doing good.
Thank you for a thoughtful comment, unfortunately I don’t have time right now to read it as carefully as I would like, but I have two short points:
I think you misread the first guy (or one of us did). I understand the statement is not “nonviolent communication is violent” but rather calling distasteful communication “violent communication” both increases the threat posed by words alone and decreases the value of the word “violence” in a physical context. Basically it is better for me to call you an asshole than to punch you in the face, so let’s not equate them with terminology.
It may also be possible that your time in psych and corrections makes you more likely to see sociopathy when you’ve potentially misread or misunderstood which is, itself, potentially harmful to getting a message across.
I will basically never tell someone “seek help for XXX” unless I’m being wildly sarcastic or intentionally combative in either case.
Gotta get my kids but I’ll be around later.
Edit:
Basically speech and violence are inherently different things, and I agree with the original poster that I would prefer not to equate them.
Sure, lots of people here on Lemmy may say “obviously words are violence”, but I’m not inclined to trust commentary here to be a representative sample. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, flipping this around, would you expect to get tased and sent to jail for calling a cop a pig, just like if you punched him in the face? If no, then it seems to me there’s an opportunity for nuance. Sure, this is conflating violence and assault, but if we aren’t going to specifically define violence, then it seems to me that’s as good a definition as any other. Otherwise what? Any form of meanness is violence? I don’t buy it.
There is every reason to communicate directly and succinctly to actually make a point, which precludes tone or particular wording that is offensive, no complaints there. But I would say that by giving a common platform to words and actions we are putting a fair amount of weight behind what I will call “manufactured fragility”. It would be great to have the entire world adopt fair and equitable discourse, but that just isn’t going to happen with a fingersnap. And in the meantime we are going to ascribe the same verbiage to both mean posters on the Internet and people who batter their children? I see that as an insulting trivialization of “actual” (physical) violence.
This discussion HAS to start with a recognition and definition of terms, and assimilating terminology tastes bad in this case.
Hey, sorry. I actually work and had no time to follow up. Thanks for the insightful response. Even though I still don’t agree with most of your point. You are, indeed, conflating all of violence and reducing it to just assault. Which is hurtful and trivializes the suffering of victims of harassment, rape, and many more. Yours is the same logic by which rapists argue that it was not “actual” rape.
The confusion seems to derive from a desire of making violence be a binary flip. Violence or not violence. And that is just not how any professional working with victims and aggressors ever thinks about violence. Violence is a gradient.
Of course that hitting a child in the face is not equivalent with calling them a racist slur. But, the point is, that although they are of different degrees, they are both acts of violence. Is it better being called an asshole than being punched? absolutely. But this doesn’t make it a good thing to do. It was still psychological violence.
It’s an atrociously disingenuous strawman to pretend like I, or anyone here, equates verbal violence with life threatening physical violence. Because it is just not what I have suggested, anywhere, ever. But only mentally ill people think it is alright to verbally abuse people as a normal and appropriate response to any situation. Again, I’m not using metal illness like a binary flip concept. Mental illness is also a (multidimensional) gradient. I’ve met very nice and well adjusted sociopaths in my practice. With family and a thriving social circle. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t need help and support from professionals to get there, or that they didn’t occasionally struggled and needed help to point out morally dubious or potentially dangerous behaviors.
I agree, nuance is much needed. But your position is not one that provide such. As it relies on Manichean, all or nothing, good vs. evil, logic. Reality is much more complex than that. I’m offering nuance, you are just arguing about where the line lies, I’m telling it’s not a line.
I was not considering violence as a spectrum. Since your last comment, I did some background research and saw that “nonviolent communication” has its roots in a book that came out at the same time that non-violent protest was being put to effective use. In that context it does make sense.
To make sure I wasn’t crazy, I did just google the definition of violence and the top definition is here:
violence /vī′ə-ləns/ noun Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury.So I appreciate the idea, I don’t prefer the terminology, but I suppose I shouldn’t be hung up about it.
I do take issue with this though:
My point is the opposite. I think the trivialization goes the other way. Suppose we have a group session for victims of violence. This gradient point now means that a rape survivor, the domestic abuse survivor, and the victim of some race related beat down sit with someone who gets called names on XBox Chat. Are they all victims? Absolutely. Can they be reasonably lumped into the same group? I would think no, but then this is not my area of expertise.
Not to nitpick, but a dictionary definition has no bearing. When I have more time I could share part of the scientific literature on violence that has a more integral and exhaustive definition. For example: in psychology we differentiate between violence and aggression. Violence being the umbrella term, and aggression—the specific acts of physical violence, and further we add extreme aggression.
On this point:
And they are not. No one is proposing that. Again, it is a strawman of your own creation.
Just to point out. This trivialization that you fear, does not happen. But the trivialization of victim’s experiences because they didn’t suffer “actual” violence, is widespread and happens all the time.
EDIT: I offer you the following articles on the complexities of working with the topic of violence. There’s a nice discussion about the cultural, sociological, methodological and ethical challenges of defining violence. But this is, I think, a nice opening for where I’m coming from (emphasis is mine):
The world report on violence and health, WHO (2002)
Methodological and ethical challenges in violence research
The dictionary definition reflects common usage, and we are only having this discussion because I backed up someone else who had the same thought based on, you know, common usage. I’m happy to hear the trivialization for the scenario I described doesnt happen based on your experience. I still don’t like the wording, but then, I don’t have to.
This whole post—not just this comment thread—is precisely the definition of “my ignorance is equal to your expertise”. Bunch of people spouting opinions from common understanding on things they don’t understand. It’s not the first time that common usage of groups of people is entirely off with scientific facts. Like, the whole point of OP is that they disagree with something because they don’t understand it. It’s a tale as old as time itself. If we only followed common usage you would not be using soap and treatment for fever would still be bloodletting.
I will also say I like the part where I gave you the win in a cordial thread of the no stupid questions community wherein I admitted I understand the historical value of the term now even though I don’t like it, but you couldnt accept. When you can’t convince me to like it you just gotta tell me what my problem is, downvote every comment, and go home.
The problem here may well be opinion vs expertise, but every time someone brings up skilled and unskilled labor (for example) I do it. As do all of us experts who have an important message, and we should be doing it patiently and without judgement.
So let me, at the close, suggest to you that you go back to the very top and see how your attempt at direct, nonviolent communication came up way short. I think there is value in the approach and there’s value in expertise, but for an “expert” in the field, I find this exchange to be equal parts tone deaf, insightful, and ultimately officious/petulant/immature. This sure felt like some undergraduate level dick measuring bullshit to me 🤷.
Next time I hope you try to destigmatize mental health issues broadly not specifically, and someone calls you out in the same way every time you short circuit a discussion by suggesting that’s why whoever you’re addressing “doesn’t get it”.
Have a great day!
Let it be a lesson when you write your book to choose a better name, then. You won’t have to work against the grain. It will also go easier if you don’t suggest that anyone who disagrees with you has some form of mental health disorder, but that would be nit picking.