NVC talks a lot about making requests. For example, "Would you be willing to ...?"

I suggest it is better to ask, "How would you feel about...?" This opens the door to get more information, with less pressure to answer yes or no.

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NVC suggest we ask our partner, and others, questions like "Are you willing to..."

One concern is that this is a yes or no question. It does not leave much room for input, discussion.

Another concern is that I believe we are motivated to do things by our feelings of love. If I love my parter, I feel motivated to do things, voluntarily, which she likes. And I feel motivated to help fill her needs.

But if she asks me "Are you willing to do this and that?"" and she itemizes specific behaviors, I don't feel motivated by love. It is more motivated by fear of losing her if I don't do those things. At least that is how I look at it.

But if the feeling of love is there, we do many, many things, often unexpected and unrequeested, out of those loving feelings. And it feels good to us to do them.

Also, if she just tells me how she is feeling, she is giving me emotional information without requesting anything of me. Over time I can use this emotional information to get to know her and her needs. I can voluntarily do things to help her feel better and help fill her needs. I don't feel as pressured as if she were to say "Are you willing to do so and so...?"

MBR often looks for and requests very specific behavior.

In one of his examples, M suggests it would be better to say “I want you to tell me what you heard me say” than, "I want you to understand me." He says the latter "does not clearly express a specific action being requested".

This is a good example of him being more concerned with behavior than feelings. It is very possible that person B could comply with the "request" by repeating word for word what person A had said. But this does not mean that person A will feel understood. In this example, the feeling is what is most important. I suggest a better method would be for person

Marshall also suggests that someone say something specific like “I want you to tell me you won’t leave our relationship—even if I do some things that you don’t like.” But this is a bit of a set up for a future guilt trip if the person later decides they want to leave the relationship. Also, at with yes/no questions or requests, it does not allow the other person to give much input or share there feelings, and it puts a degree of pressure on the other person.

NVC uses a lot of yes/no questions. But you can't really understand someone thru yes/no questions. Or, if you did reach some understanding, it would probably take a lot longer than asking open ended questions.

The person asking the questions also has more power than the person answering. Somewhat like a person being interrogated or investigated by the police. In other words, it does not foster equality. It sets up a situation where the person answering feels less powerful so they will have an unmet need to feel equal. Then, when they get the chance to be the person asking the questions, it could "go to their head" as they attempt to fill their unmet need to feel equal or even more powerful at that moment.

Imagine being on the witness stand and being asked a lot of questions. Then imagine the tables are turned and the lawyer who has been asking you the questions now has to exchange places with you. He sits down and you begin to ask the questions. How do you think you will be feeling at that moment?

One suggestion is to ask "How much do you feel understood by me, from 0-10? Then explore the answers and try to raise the number.

The person asking the questions is usually the one in control.

NVC system asks a lot of questions, especially yes/no questions. These don't invite much freedom to respond freely, completely and spontaneously. They are, in other words, limiting or restricting as oposed to open ended questions, which are by definition opening.

Dictator - in one place I saw that someone working with MBR called him a dictator. (Need to find the quote)

MBR seems to have a big unmet need to feel in control, important, right, superior etc.

In my work with youth suicide prevention one thing I learned from the teenagers is that then need to feel cared about.

but if i say "i dont want to go to sri lanka" - it is stll helpfl info - didnt like mosquitoes, heat, scary train, crowded buses, mudslides, rain, taxi drivers

abused person doesnt know what "normal" or healthy is. they have no idea what they want because they have never experienced it and cant conceive of it. like saying you want to live on another planet and ten descrbibing all the things you like about that other planet.

if you ask them what they want and they don't konw they could easily feel even more inadequate

His background includes a lot of cognitive and behavior psychology. He also talked a lot about the "spiritual" basis of NVC.

I don't consider myself spiritual or religious. Instead I call myself "an atheist with unanswered questions."

What happens when someone doesn't want to do what they agreed to?

Thomas Gordon says you need to make a new agreement (since the old one is not meeting one of the party's needs.) CNVC says you call upon an outside authority that has more power. IE the US legal system. In essence, you rely upon force in the final analysis.

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The final authority for the CNVC contract is the US Court system. That seems very opposed to NVC idea of conflict resolution. It means that when the two partes can't reach a new agreement or can't solve the conflict, a third party, with legal authority, ie the judge (who can call upon physical force), is called in to "settle" the case. In fact, it even seems like the people at CNVC don't really believe in the concept of non-violent conflict resolution 100%. If they did, they would not even add that clause to the contract.

Marshall's Obnoxious Stage -Correcting people.

I was also "correcting" people when I first started talking about feelings and emotional literacy. I would say "That's not a feeling" and people would feel annoyed, not cared about and not understood. It would be have been better to say "Coud I help you say that in one specific feeling word?"

Dictator

MBR often gives commands like: Hold it Hold on.

Who will take over CNVC? How will money be spent?(IE how will power be used?)

See interpretation

Who will tell us what a feeling is when MBR dies? He seems to be the sole authority now. (And where does his authority come from?

A problem, as I see it, with the Bible, for example, is the way it is subject to interpretation. It has a lot of specifi rules, - especially the Old Testament. But what would Jesus do today? Very hard to say....

Would he wear a tie? Would he hit a child? Would he punish a child?

I'll address this more later - (see article I wrote on Portugal train - nvc carta

MBR's pictuure is everywhere- Like King's picture in Thailand

Infallibility?