If your question is not answered here, by all means contact us.
About the Immersion Program
Who is the one-year immersion program for?
What will the immersion program do for me?
What does the immersion program entail?
Why immersion?
What if I can’t afford the tuition?
What if I can’t commit to a year?
What if I want to continue after one year?
Philosophy and Methods
What is your teaching philosophy?
What do you mean by “mediate your life”?
How do the role-play models work?
Intensive Details
What is covered in the first intensive?
What is covered in the second intensive?
What is covered in the third intensive?
How does the triad practice between intensives work?
I live in the area. Can I commute instead of staying onsite?
I did an intensive a year or so ago. Can I start with the second intensive?
Why are people in their second or third year of the program in the same intensives as first-year students?
What is the daily schedule?
Can I choose my roommate if I know someone else who will be at the intensive?
About the Immersion Program
Who is the one-year immersion program for?
Anyone who wants to learn how to handle conflict in his or her life in a more satisfactory way. As long as we interact with people, we will experience conflict. This training is designed to increase our capacity to be with conflict, and to impart the skills necessary to overcome it. If your job requires dealing with conflict or facilitating groups—maybe you are a mediator, human resources professional, therapist, or educator—our training will take you to a new level of effectiveness. But NVC Mediation is absolutely not just for professionals. The skills we teach are everyday skills that can transform your relationships with your family, friends, and coworkers, and even your relationship with yourself.
What will the immersion program do for me?
People report all kinds of benefits, but they tend to fall into three main categories.
You’ll develop the ability to be calm and present when experiencing or witnessing conflict. Most of us go into an aroused state of fight/flight/freeze. This gets communicated to other people through tone of voice and body language and tends to make the situation worse. To be able to, instead, keep yourself in a centered, nonreactive space and not reinforce the conflict is a huge contribution in and of itself. Once you experience this, you begin to learn that conflict is not so bad, that you can engage with it.
You’ll develop skills for handling conflict, starting with the skill of self-connection. You will learn to notice when you are disconnected from yourself, then to reconnect with your feelings and needs, and finally to see what action you want to take from there. Once you can do that, you naturally become more able to connect with another person, or to help other people connect. Through practice, you become confident that you can support a quality of connection that allows conflicts to dissolve. By the end of the program, most people see a radical difference in their ability to approach and resolve conflict in their own lives. Further, many people develop a comfort level with these skills that allows them to begin mediating for others professionally—a very satisfying way to work in the world.
You’ll grow as a person. We encourage you to bring your own conflicts into the training and practice with them. In addition to gaining the first two benefits, you may leave the training having already experienced a remarkable shift in your personal conflicts. Many people do!
What does the immersion program entail?
Our yearlong NVC Mediation Immersion Program comprises three multi-day intensives spaced over 9 to 12 months, plus a commitment to learning and practice activities between the intensives:
- Daily individual self-connection and skill-building practices (details below)
- Weekly telephone dyad and triad practice with fellow participants (details below)
- Monthly joint teleconference sessions extending one month after the third intensive to support next steps and integration of the training into your life
- Support from assistant trainers during and between intensives
Daily self-connection. We model several approaches, although you may well find your own method of connecting with yourself on a daily basis. Whatever your approach, we’ve learned that it’s best to incorporate the four NVC components of observations, feelings, needs, and requests, and to have a daily reminder of these that helps you carry them with you.
Weekly dyad practice partner call. This is an hour-long call to practice processes and skills from the training with one other person. You will receive support and also gain the skills and capacity to support someone else.
Weekly triad practice. This is an hour-and-a-half practice, over the phone or in person, in a group of three. Each person generally gets around 12 to 20 minutes in the mediator’s chair. You’ll rotate your own conflict through the chairs, taking on each vantage point.
Why immersion?
Learning NVC Mediation is very much like learning a new language. And we all know that the best way to become fluent in a new language is to immerse yourself in an environment where others are speaking and learning it too.
With its three multi-day intensives and structured practice in between, the program offers in-depth training in a new language, a new set of skills, a new consciousness. It gives you the time you need to become confident and effective in dealing with all aspects of conflict, in all aspects of your life. It also gives you a community that will support continued learning and growth long after the program ends.
What if I can’t afford the tuition?
We and many others have invested a great deal of ourselves in making this program possible. Our request for tuition is a request that you contribute to our livelihoods and support our ability to share NVC Mediation around the world. We feel deep gratitude for your support, and for your desire to take part in the work of ensuring that every community and culture has the resources to resolve their conflicts peacefully and compassionately.
Given that larger goal, we of course want to include everyone! So we have set aside a limited number of scholarships for those who want to join us but can’t afford the tuition. If that’s you, please contact us.
In your e-mail, please answer the following questions:
1. How do you intend to use what you learn at the training in the world?
2. Would it help if you could pay the tuition in installments?
3. What portion of the tuition are you willing to pay?
4. In addition to tuition, is there anything else that you want to offer us?
5. Which program and start date are you interested in?
What if I can’t commit to a year?
If you can’t commit to the full program, or aren’t sure whether you want to, you can attend the first intensive and decide at the end. The second and third intensives are open only to those who intend to complete the full program. Exception: The Poland program requires that you sign up for all three intensives.
What if I want to continue after one year?
You will be very welcome to continue in the program for a second and third year!
First-, second-, and third-year students are fully integrated, but you won’t find the program repetitive. The training is continually evolving, and students report that the material is so rich, they hear something different even if what’s covered is the same. In any case, the bulk of the training lies in practice, which you can dial in to your skill level to get the deeper learning you want. With a year or more of practice already behind you, you may coach during mediation role-plays, offer empathy and support between training sessions, and even mediate conflicts that arise between other students. We also provide additional learning opportunities as participant-coaches for second- and third-year students.
Philosophy and Methods
What is your teaching philosophy?
It’s twofold: practice and one step at a time.
Practice. Both of us have experienced watching NVC creator Marshall Rosenberg mediate onstage, and then trying to sit in the role of mediator out in the real world only to have it not go so well. We had to learn not only how to deconstruct what was happening onstage, but also how to put it into a training context so that others could learn it. One of the simple insights that came out of that process was that to learn how to do something—and for adults, that often means relearning patterns of behavior—you must practice it.
In our trainings, we do of course lay a foundation of shared concepts and processes through instruction. But the focus is on providing vehicles for practicing and integrating the skills. In each segment of a training day, we have that didactic piece, often doing a demonstration of what we are talking about. But as soon as possible, we begin the practice period. Toward the end of the segment, we come back together as a group to “harvest the practice.”
Still, you can’t master these skills in a few days. It’s the commitment you make to practice between intensives and over time that gets you to a place where your ability to hold conflict and to mediate really shifts.
One step at a time. To make the nine skills (See “What is covered in the first intensive?”) easier and faster to learn and embody, we approach them through exercises that build one upon the other, layer by layer, in increasing levels of difficulty. When you’re first learning, you need to practice at the easiest level, until you feel solid there. As you gain skill, you can invite challenges during your practice sessions, such as heated emotion or being interrupted. You’re always in control of the practice you are getting, so you are building a solid foundation and never getting ahead of yourself.
What do you mean by “mediate your life”?
To us, life is one big mediation. When people hear “mediation training,” they tend to think of one context: being a mediator who works with others who are in conflict. But we offer a more holistic approach. We train to four contexts:
- Internal. The conflict is inside your own head, between aspects of yourself.
- Self-other/interpersonal. The conflict is between you and someone else.
- Informal. You mediate someone else’s conflict without being asked to do so.
- Formal. You mediate someone else’s conflict at their request.
Once you learn the skills, there is little difference between the contexts—they all flow into one another. We distinguish between these four for training purposes, however, using different maps for navigating different situations. This helps people to not only learn the skills, but also feel more effective and confident in all contexts.
People find that the training increases their capacity to be with conflict, whatever the context. Meaning that they can shift out of the habitual reactions of fight/flight/freeze that occur when what is perceived to be a difficult situation arises. By practicing the skills learned in the training, you slowly become able to be present with what is actually happening.
The moment of shifting from tension or conflict to reconnection has a quality of magic to it. At first, you may not know how to predictably create those moments. Through the training, and then through practicing the skills, you learn how to increase their probability in interaction with family members, friends, coworkers, and even strangers. Thus, the training helps you mediate all aspects of your life.
How do the role-play models work?
Experiential learning via role-play is the best way we’ve found to rapidly acquire the skills and capacity to deal with conflict and facilitate difficult conversations. Flexible one-, two-, and three-chair models mimic the real world’s varied situations—we encourage you to use your own issues—and give you a chance to practice from the perspective of each chair/role. They work so well because you get immediate feedback and in-the-moment coaching. It’s a very effective, safe way to learn.
These models simulate conflicts between people, of course, but they are also effective for internal conflicts and self-judgments. By “putting the voices into the chairs,” you can learn to mediate between the warring voices in your head. With practice, you’ll be able to do the whole process in your head.
The three-chair model is perhaps the most powerful one. It’s a triad that represents all three perspectives of the mediation process, with two disputants and a mediator. From early on in the course, you have the opportunity to sit in all three chairs/roles—powerful learning comes from sitting in the disputant chair as well as the mediator chair. The model can be used to practice the formal mediation process or the internal mediation process. For internal conflicts, you can give the disputants the words swirling through your head and then serve as your own mediator.
Periodically, the practice groups stop to give and receive feedback, and then they go right back into the role-play to apply that feedback. The feedback system entails a set of agreements that concern measuring the effect of your words on connection. Words can open or close hearts. Everyone in the triad simply checks what they are doing, asking, “By using this language, am I creating more or less connection?” People begin to crave this feedback because it gives them an immediate sense of whether what they are doing is “working.” To have your heart open, even though you intended to stay angry and hard, is powerful learning.
You’ll learn the three-chair model in the first intensive, so you’ll be prepared to practice in groups in between intensives.
Intensive Details
What is covered in the first intensive?
The initial intensive focuses on developing your capacity to be present during conflict, and on applying the language and skills of NVC to mediating conflict—both internal and between others. You’ll be introduced to the three-chair model, a role-play model that’s key to our practice-based approach.
Self-connection practice. You’ll learn how to strengthen your general ability for presence and self-connection.
Intensity exercise. You’ll practice returning to self-connection when you get “triggered” by a conflict, and you’ll practice interpersonal mediation (in which you are one of the disputants).
The five-step mediation model. A building block.
- Empathize with person A and surface their need(s)
- Ask party B to reflect party A’s need(s)
- Empathize with person B and surface their need(s)
- Ask party A to reflect part B’s need(s)
- Requests—support clear, doable requests and agreements
The nine skills: These are the primary skills of NVC Mediation. We’ll touch on all nine, but you’ll practice only one through five during this first intensive.
- Empathy
- Connecting requests
- Pulling by the ears
- Emergency empathy
- Tracking
- Interrupting
- Self-empathy
- Self-expression
- Solution requests
The enemy image process (EIP). An “enemy image” is any image—positive or negative—that blocks us from seeing a person with whom we are in conflict as they really are, in their full humanness. The EIP helps you to transform enemy images into connection and compassion. It’s not about merely trying to think differently about the person, but about actually changing your inner experience of him or her. In this first intensive, you learn how to use the process for yourself, in the context of personal conflicts with others. If you are a professional mediator, you can apply the process to negative reactions you might have to clients.
The chooser-educator process. Based on a mourn/celebrate/learn model, this process can be used after a difficult conversation to shift into a more effective learning cycle—one based on needs met and not met, rather than guilt and shame, and on how to better meet our needs going forward.
What is covered in the second intensive?
We will introduce some new concepts and skills while expanding on those you learned during the first intensive. Here’s where you begin to integrate your learning and gain real confidence.
The nine skills, continued. Having practiced skills one to five in the first intensive, we’ll spend a day on skills six to nine: interrupting, self-empathy, self-expression, and solution requests.
The enemy image process, continued. In the second intensive, we go deeper into this important process. In addition to strengthening your ability to transform your own enemy images, you’ll practice using the EIP to help others prepare for a mediation or a challenging conversation. Typically, the process helps people to go into a conversation from a new place, which makes success far more likely.
Interpersonal mediation. This context of being in conflict with another person comes up in your daily life, of course. It also comes up in formal mediations, when there’s a disconnect between yourself as mediator and one of the disputants.
Self-care. Whether you are dealing with an interpersonal conflict, helping two friends with their conflict, or professionally mediating a dispute between clients, you need to take care of yourself throughout the process. We cover various ways of doing so, including using the enemy image process on yourself before a mediation and using the mourn/celebrate/learn process after to deal with any intrusive thoughts you might have about how it went.
Making Amends This is about seeking forgiveness. We show you how to apply the healing and reconciliation process to restoring your connection with someone who believes you have wronged them.
What is covered in the third intensive?
The final intensive goes deeper still with mediating both group conflict and inner conflict. We’ll talk about our “inner community,” meaning our internalized culture. You’ll begin to embody the skills in your life.
The healing and reconciliation process. In the second intensive, we introduced this process in the context of making amends. Now we explore other contexts, including larger social ones, such as punitive vs. restorative justice systems and liberation from images of “oppressed” and “oppressor.”
Mediating with groups. In this third intensive, we offer specific processes around how to mediate conflict in groups, formally or informally, as well as a process for group decision making.
Internal mediation. The mediation skills and processes can be applied to your own self-judgments—the warring voices in your head. In particular, you’ll learn to see how self-judgments correspond to your judgments of others. Using the three-chair role-play model, you’ll let two disputants play the roles of your opposing voices and serve as mediator to your own conflict.
Support. How do you want to use these skills out in the world? First, we’ll help you get clearer on that question, and then we’ll help you use the mediation processes to work through any barriers to turning your vision into reality.
How does the triad practice between intensives work?
During the first intensive, you and two or three others form a group that will meet once a week for an hour and a half (by phone if you don’t all live in the same area). Each week, you practice with one conflict. It can be internal or interpersonal. We recommend that you choose a conflict one of you is actually experiencing, and that you rotate each week so everyone has a chance to work on a personal conflict.
Let’s say the conflict is yours. You start as a disputant, role-playing yourself. After a 12- to 15-minute mediation, the group stops to debrief and then switches roles, with you moving into the role of the other disputant. On the third rotation, you move into the mediator role and have a chance to mediate your own conflict. Each week, then, everyone in the group gets to practice their skills in the roles of both disputant and mediator. Over the course of a few weeks, everyone also gets to work with a personal conflict, experiencing the growth and transformation that results.
I live in the area. Can I commute instead of staying onsite?
Yes. However, we really encourage you to treat the training as a retreat and stay overnight. The retreat aspect helps you dive in and focus on the learning. You never know when the learning is going to happen. It can and does happen through the regular sessions (which run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on each full day of the training), but it often also happens spontaneously outside the class. When a group of people lives closely and shares meals for many days, things come up—between you and someone else, or between two other people—and you get a chance to practice your skills. These are often the richest learning moments, because they are so real, and people’s lives are affected by your choices.
Learning NVC Mediation is very much like learning a new language. And we all know that the best way to become fluent a new language is to immerse yourself in an environment where others are speaking and learning it too. This is not the kind of training where you can fill up a notebook, put it on the shelf, and call it done. You need to incorporate what you learn into your being. The training is an opportunity for you to learn in a context where you are safe to push yourself, let down your guard a little and try some new things, be present a little longer when you become uncomfortable with conflict, and grow with each incremental step you take. When you stay onsite, you have as much time as possible to do all that.
I did an intensive with you a year or so ago. Can I start with the second intensive?
We prefer that you start with the first intensive for two reasons:
Community. The trainings are not just about the learning, they are about the community that forms and what happens within that community. And something happens in the first intensive that is foundational in terms of building community. When you miss the first intensive, you enter the second as a newcomer to a group that has already become a community. It is not the same quality of experience—for you or for the group. We have found that the immersion program is most powerful when people create a community during the first intensive and continue to build it together.
Every intensive is different. First, our training is continually evolving; the training we were doing a year or two ago is not the training we are doing today. Second, while you may have already heard some of the material the first time around, an intensive is never a waste of time. Remember that the bulk of the training lies in practice, which you can dial in to your skill level to get the deeper learning you want. If your skill level is high enough, you may want to begin coaching people, perhaps helping someone who needs support in going through the enemy image process or even someone who needs to have a facilitated conversation outside of the training room.
That said, we are also sensitive to time and resources and all the constraints that people have in their lives. We consider requests to start with the second intensive on a case-by-case basis. We are more likely to grant your request if you have been consistently doing the requested practices—triad, dyad, and daily connection—and using your skills out in the world since the earlier intensive.
Why are people in their second or third year of the program in the same intensives as first-year students?
First-, second-, and third-year students are fully integrated. The more experienced students don’t find it repetitive. The training is continually evolving, so it’s somewhat different from year to year. And in any case, students report that the material is so rich, they hear something different even if what’s covered is the same. Most important, peer learning is an integral part of our trainings. Having applied the material in their lives for a year or more, continuing students enrich and broaden the program for everybody. They may coach during mediation role-plays, offer empathy and support between training sessions, and even mediate conflicts that arise between other students. First-year students get all the support they could want, while second- and third-year students can participate as both students and coaches or even as trainers in training.
We also provide additional learning opportunities for second- and third-year students. While first-year students are welcome to attend, these sessions focus on the particular concerns and learning challenges of more experienced students. To ensure that the issues they are dealing with, such as building a practice, are addressed, they cocreate the topics with the facilitators.
What is the daily schedule?
Each intensive begins on a Thursday evening at 7 p.m., and ends on a Monday at 3 p.m., followed by an included lunch. Each full day of training runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. We start with a three-hour session. After a lunch break, there’s some time for self-organized practice before a second three-hour session of learning and practice. After dinner, we offer more teaching or a demonstration, but you are free to socialize, rest, or organize something else if you wish.
Can I choose my roommate if I know someone else who will be at the intensive?
That’s an easy one: yes!