NVC Question #11

Question:

I’m still kind of confused about the NVC general sense of the term ‘need’.

I’d before been thinking that NVC talks about ‘needs’ rather than ‘values’ or ‘wants’ because by thinking of them as needs, people would respect the desire once noticing and taking account of it, in themselves and/or others. So this was kind of my own way of interpreting the NVC term in a way that didn’t state necessity, such as “I need understanding”.

I put together the facts that NVC talks about needs, you’re an experienced user of NVC, and you mentioned you don’t like “need” based thinking, and wondered what was your own way of treating the NVC terminology of needs. (Perhaps you oppose the use of ‘need’ to mean obligations specifically rather than necessity generally?)

Answer:

I think I understand your question better now.

I guess I was being somewhat imprecise when talking about “need-based thinking”. The needs that NVC lists are all very general. Respect, fun, connection, stuff like that. The most specific ones are stuff like air and water. So sure, you “need” respect, but you don’t “need” it from any one person. You “need” fun, but you don’t “need” to have fun playing this video game right now. Those are strategies.