Non-Violent Resistance

NVR is a Systemic Family Therapy intervention with families where there is child-to-parent violence. It has developed in the last 15 years as an approach to respond to a range of behaviours that may lead to parents feeling helpless and disempowered in their role.

The methods and ideas of non-violent resistance and direct action come from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. NVR can help parents and carers overcome their sense of helplessness. It can develop and strengthen a support network that will reduce violent and destructive behaviours both in and out of the home. It can improve relationships between family members and the outside world.

Learning to resist violence and destructive behaviours is a powerful choice to make. NVR is not about giving in or ignoring behaviour. NVR restores individual strength and self respect and supports caring and respectful relationships in the family and wider communities.

I can offer strategies and interventions using NVR principles in my work with families, either in a group setting or in a therapeutic intervention with an individual family.