Welcome to our page dedicated to Endorsements and Testimonials, book reviews, and quotes about the efficacy of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Most of these are from people who've experienced NVC firsthand. For your convenience, we've separated these by type, and by areas of impact and interest.
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Endorsements
- Authors
- Business Leaders
- Government Leaders
- Famous People
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Testimonials About NVC
All testimonials presented here as they were submitted by their authors. We are grateful for all feedback. If you have experience with NVC and would like to submit a testimonial, please use our Endorsement & Testimonial form.
Endorsements for NVC
Authors:
"We should all be grateful to Marshall Rosenberg. He provides us with the most effective tools to foster health and relationships"
Deepak Chopra, author
How To Know God
"The principles of Nonviolent Communication taught by Dr. Rosenberg are instrumental in creating an extraordinary and fulfilling quality of life. His compassionate and inspiring message cuts right to the heart of successful communication. "
Anthony Robbins, author Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power
"Marshall Rosenberg is the mentor I wish we'd all had growing up. We learned to speak but not communicate and that has led to so much unnecessary personal and social misery. In this book you will find an amazingly effective language for saying what's on your mind and in your heart. Like so many essential and elegant systems, it's simple on the surface, challenging to use in the heat of the moment and powerful in its results. I use these tools every day and can totally vouch for them."
Vicki Robin, Co-author (with the late Joe Dominguez)
Your Money or Your Life
"Marshall Rosenberg's dynamic communication techniques transform potential conflicts into peaceful dialogues. You'll learn simple tools to diffuse arguments and create compassionate connections with your family, friends, and other acquaintances. I highly recommend this book."
John Gray, Ph.D., author
Men are From Mars, Women are from Venue.
"I believe the principles and techniques in this book can literally change the world, but more importantly, they can change the quality of your life with your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your coworkers and everyone else you interact with. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
by Jack Canfield, author
Chicken Soup for the Soul series
"Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is a
great book teaching a compassionate way to talk to people---
even if you (or they) are angry. One story in the book shook me.
It's about an imprisoned man who learned Rosenberg's method.
Afterwards the criminal told the author, "I wish you had taught me
two years ago what you taught me this morning. I wouldn't have
had to kill my best friend." In these times of intense fear and anger, it may be wise to visit his website."
Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, author of Spiritual Marketing, Hypnotic Writing, and the best-selling audioprogram, The Power of Outrageous Marketing.
"Like Noam Chomsky, Rosenberg's work is intrinsically radical, it subverts our whole status-quo system of power: between children and adults, the sane and the psychotic, the criminal and the law. With all hype aside, the self-help diva Jack Canfield is probably right: "the principles and techniques in this book can literally change the world."
by D. Killian, Writer
Cleveland Free Times
"No matter what the issue may be that serves to separate us from others, whether it is sexual orientation, gender, or racial differences, NVC is a process that can bring us back into connection, and help us to honor and appreciate our differences and celebrate our common needs."
Carol Placer,
Association Of Women in Psychology, Northern Arizona contact
"A revolutionary way of looking at language. If enough people actually make use of the material in "Nonviolent Communication" we may soon live in a more peaceful and compassionate world."
Wes Taylor,
Progressive Health
"In our present age of uncivil discourse and mean-spirited demagoguery, racial hatreds and ethnic intolerance, the principles and practices outlined in Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication are as timely as they are necessary to the peace resolution of conflicts, personal or public, domestic or international."
Midwest Book Review
Taylor's Shelf
"Changing the way the world has worked for 5000 years sounds daunting, but every time we use Nonviolent Communication, deep listening, or collaborative problem solving, we are liberating ourselves, and our children, from ancient patterns of violence."
Francis Lefkowitz,
Body and Soul
"I Highly recommend Nonviolent Communication to anyone interested in resolving conflicts, creating more intimate relationships, or exploring the connection between language and violence."
Kate Lin,
The New Times
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Testimonials
Business/Professional
"The principles of Nonviolent Communication taught by Dr. Rosenberg are instrumental in creating an extraordinary and fulfilling quality of life. His compassionate and inspiring message cuts right to the heart of successful communication. "
Anthony Robbins, author Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power
"Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is a
great book teaching a compassionate way to talk to people---
even if you (or they) are angry. One story in the book shook me.
It's about an imprisoned man who learned Rosenberg's method.
Afterwards the criminal told the author, "I wish you had taught me
two years ago what you taught me this morning. I wouldn't have
had to kill my best friend." In these times of intense fear and anger, it may be wise to visit his website."
Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, author of Spiritual Marketing, Hypnotic Writing, and the best-selling audioprogram, The Power of Outrageous Marketing.
"I had come to realize that my old communication style was very judgmental and full of fault finding and I was not happy nor were my work associates and family members. My life is significantly changed due to practicing Nonviolent Communication on a daily basis with all those around me. I am more settled and relaxed even when I am busy. I no longer feel the need to discover fault or place blame. Everyone is happy to be working with me for the first time in my 33 years of owning and operating my own businesses."
Ron Eisenberg, Owner, Great News Cooking School
"The strongest impacts of NVC on me are two:
To listen to somebody’s “NO” and know that it only means that this person prefers something else, not that something is wrong with me.
To experience the power of empathy. Situations that seem unresolvable just disappear."
Towe Widstrand, Organizational Consultant, Lidingo, Sweden
"Thank you for the wonderful presentation. I just finished reviewing the faculty evaluations. People were touched and tuned into your ideas and suggestions for communicating in a nonviolent way."
Marjorie Howe, Professor, College of the Emeriti
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Conflict Resolution/Mediation
"As a student and teacher of conflict resolution, the insights I have had in reading nonviolent Communication and listening to Marshall Rosenberg have contributed considerably to my understanding of what works and what doesn't and why. I am continually impressed when I meet people who use his approach at the benefits to us all, youth and adults, in communicating more clearly what our needs are and what we would like from one another."
Kathryn Liss, National Coordinator, Help Increase the Peace Program
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Education
"Thank you for arranging the Keynote Address with Marshall Rosenberg for the National Center for Montessori Educators Conference. Marshall has a unique message to share with his audiences.
His sense of humor and wit made the Keynote Address very entertaining. The teachers left with his easy steps for peaceful communication and a new way to work with the children and parents."
Barbara Moffitt, Executive Director, National Center for Montessori Educators
"Life-Enriching Education presents effective procedures for improving the communication that affects and enhances all our lives. Since communication is the essence of all interpersonal relationships; and since it is also the heart and soul of the educational process; Dr. Rosenberg's communication procedures, applications and skills taught in this new book, can greatly enrich everyone's life.
Marshall Rosenberg presents nonviolent communication strategies that are so simple one could question their profundity; yet so sagacious that one could readily declare them to be revolutionary. Either way, the process is a crucial key to improving relationships in our individual lives, in society and indeed in the world.
While nonviolent communication can improve all relationships, perhaps its foremost potential lies in its impact on education. Life-Enriching Education can begin changing the lives of teachers, students, educators and parents immediately. Dr. Rosenberg lays out practical, meaningful, specific procedures for changing the relationships that are unquestionably the foundations of the teaching-learning process. The communication procedures he describes are so fundamental that they are as appropriate for students as for teachers; for parents; and for school board members as well as administrators.
Education is notorious for its "quick-fixes"; its adding super-structures to existing, ineffective structures; and, its rearranging floor plans rather than dealing with foundations. Here, at last, is an efficacious communication model that changes education's foundations by changing its most basic relationships. Remarkably, all anyone need do is read and understand Dr Rosenberg's book, try out some of the dialog it offers, and practice using the communication model Life-Enriching Education describes for improving interactions, relationships and interpersonal skills.
Life-Enriching Education can transform education communication one interaction at a time. "
Bill Page, Program Director for Project Enable, TeacherTeacher.com
"Marshall first introduced Nonviolent Communication skills to the teachers at my inner-city elementary school. As we teachers taught the model to the children, we learned to communicate compassionately ourselves. Then as the children began to express their feelings and needs, and to make specific requests of their peers, conflicts between children were significantly reduced."
Lois Hudson, teacher Cleveland, Ohio
"In NVC workshops in my country, we got much more than skill of communication. We had a direct, experiential insight that each exchange is an opportunity to enjoy oneself and others, an opportunity for mutual enrichment. Recently an NVC educational project has taught 13,000 children from 5-16 years old how to resolve misunderstandings and conflicts in a nonviolent way. All participants in the project, young as well as old, say that learning Nonviolent Communication has enriched their lives."
Nadia Ignatovic-Savic, University Professor Belgrade, Yugoslavia
"I wish with all my heart that we had been able to give the previous generation of students these skills. I’m certain if we had, they would have had other means for resolving their differences than violence."
A teacher, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Offers enormous potential for deeply satisfying connections
"As a class teacher in a Waldorf elementary school, I relate with many children, parents, and colleagues on a daily basis. The process of nonviolent communication presented in this book is transforming every one of these relationships.
Living the process enables me to connect more deeply with the living present reality in each child, and children love and respond to the experience of that deep recognition. Parents remark at my increased openness and accessibility; whatever feelings or thoughts a parent might express, even what I might have formerly interpreted as anger, criticism or fault-finding, I am learning how to stay with process, stay with what is alive in them, and seek to know what unmet needs might be underlying those feelings or thoughts. Parents remark that they feel deeply listened to and heard. Solutions come more easily and naturally once our shared human needs are acknowledged.
Conflicts and misunderstandings with colleagues now become opportunities to create deeper connections as together we translate our positions and strategies into the universally human needs underlying the feelings. Anger, depression, shame and guilt become friends, willing to help me wake to some vital need or longing within me that is not being met in some situation.
Those voices we all have in our heads scolding us for this and blaming us for that--they too can be heard for the living human needs they represent.
Marshall has developed a new language, a language of the heart, that creates the possibility for all of these changes. Read the book! Seek out a trainer "
John Cunningham, Waldorf teacher, Ashland, Oregon
"The children introduced to the concepts of expressing feelings and wants rather than judgments and "don't wants" through the use of charts, handouts, hand and stick puppets, role-playing, discussion circles, and a written activity. These helped the students learn NVC and apply it to their own lives. The children have shared that they have indeed used the NVC process successfully in challenging situations at school and in their own homes.
I am enthusiastic about the great potential that NVC possesses for helping the next generation become much better at understanding others - and themselves---and resolving conflicts creatively and nonviolently."
Linda K. Williams, Darnall E-Campus Charter School, San Diego City Schools
"Thank you very much for your wonderful presentation yesterday. I will always remember the importance of empathy whenever there is a need to discuss a problem with someone. I will earnestly attempt to hone my skills of communication in order to keep the channel of communication open. Thank you again."
Robin Stern, Darnall E-Campus Charter School, San Diego City Schools
"I have seen evidence of the children successfully using Nonviolent Communication in their everyday interactions with one another on the playground and in the classroom. They also share that they are applying the principles at home as well.
I, too, have appreciated the opportunity to learn to speak compassionately to the children at school as well as to adults in my personal and professional life. It really does work! I have found that my conferences with parents go so much better if I can listen empathically.
I would like to see this program spread throughout our school so more children and teachers can learn the skills of NVC. I am hoping that we will be able to present a workshop to the staff so that we can instill and foster a climate of compassionate communication throughout Del Mar Heights."
Randa Krakow, second grade teacher, Del Mar Heights Elementary School
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Family/Relationship Essential reading for anyone interested in communication!
"Marshall Rosenberg offers a radical challenge to centuries of momentum toward thought and language that creates violence. His teachings illuminate the underpinnings of violence in our world, but maybe more importantly in our families and everyday life.
This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to end the unfulfilling cycles of argument in their relationship. It is essential for parents who wish to influence their childrens' behavior by engendering compassion rather than simply achieving obedience.
If enough people actually make use of the material in "Nonviolent Communication" we may soon live in a more peaceful and compassionate world."
Wes Taylor, Flagstaff, AZ
I've used the tools in this book with EXCELLENT results!
"I have applied Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in my relationship with my spouse. Topics that once took 2 to 3 days were handled clearly, thoroughly, honestly and compassionately in less than a half hour.
I have used NVC to reflect what I was hearing to a large group in a difficult, seemingly intractable conflict, and this helped them come to a resolution with which all were happy. I have used NVC to mediate in a group of 7 people, and with couples. Good results - but people have to be willing.
Perhaps I've benefitted the most from this tool in how I've applied it to my own self-talk - my inner dialog. It's helped me translate judgments and self-criticism, so that I could see what was the life-connected impulse they were coming from. Then it was easy and joyful to change without any "shoulds."
I can't say enough good things about my EXPERIENCE with this tool. Try it, you'll like it... and try to see Marshall or another trainer live. Practice groups can be useful too."
Alan Seid, Washington State, USA
Best easiest-to-follow 'how to' on communication skill ever!
"The first time I composed a total NVC sentence in response to something my daughter had done, I was thrilled with the silence with which she responded. It was like she totally heard what I said.
Rosenberg states that there is nothing new in the NVC process; that it is to remind us about what we already know about relating to each other and to show us how to live in a way that concretely manifests this knowledge.
Rosenberg includes many songs, poems, stories, anecdotes and exercises in his work in order to illustrate his points. This makes his book enjoyable to read as well as a valuable communications course.
What I would like now is some people with which to practice this model. It's not hard to make up one sentence to try the model out, but to become facile enough to respond easily in this style would take practice, support and more practice."
Judy Nommik, Ph.D., Newport, Vermont USA
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Government "We have lived traumatic moments over and over again – moments of fear and panic, incomprehension, frustrations, disappointment, and injustice of all sorts, with no hope of escape—which made it even worse. Those who have participated in Marshall Rosenberg’s training have a real desire to fully take in this Nonviolent Communication as a peaceful alternative for ending this interminable Rwandan conflict."
Theodore Nyilidandi, Dept. of Foreign Affairs, Kigali, Rwanda
"The model helps us in our daily life among our relatives, friends and opponents in times of anger, tension and conflicts. As a result of NVC training, the Palestinians have formed a committee on Nonviolent Communication. We are working to extend the pragmatic ideas of the model into the grass roots of Palestinian life."
Nafez Assailey, NVC Coordinator Palestinian Authority
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Health Care "I am amazed to see how much NVC fits with medical practice. I feel much more energy and joy in caring, now that I am engaging more and more in the Nonviolent Communication dance."
Dr. Pascale Molho, physician, Paris, France
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Personal Growth "NVC helped me to make a hard and right decision to leave my workplace of 20 years to begin doing what I want to do, which is to teach Nonviolent Communication. It also helped my wife Vera who gave me a tremendous quantity of empathy while I went through this transition. NVC helps me to understand myself and to be with myself consciously in difficult situations."
Dmitri Ronzin, NVC Trainer, St. Petersburg, Russia
"It's a shame that more people don't want to learn how to communicate compassionately. It seems so obvious to me right now that rhetoric and blaming don't solve anything. I would like to model this with others, starting out learning as much as I can and then eventually taking it into prisons and jails. If we are to stop crime, a part of the solution is to teach prisoners a new way of relating with others. I hope you continue your good work with the knowledge that you've touched a man in prison. I don't have any questions right now. It's all very clear to me. "
DW, A prison in Missouri
A way to put your spiritual commitments into daily practice.
"With elegant simplicity Marshall Rosenberg shows how to get our needs met peacefully and effectively by using the language of the heart (compassionate and connecting) rather than of the head (violence provoking). But NVC can be more than a communication process.
Marshall wrote in an article, "[the] teaching could be referred to as a spiritual practice in the sense that it is a tool for helping me and others manifest our spiritual commitments in our daily life."
The book is a specific "how to do it" manual for real life practice that works even in war zones and prisons."
A reader from Bellevue, WA
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