All Actions Are Attempts to Meet Needs

An NVC Paradoxes Workshop

What changes when we understand everything people do as an attempt to meet needs?
And what might become harder to see when this powerful perspective becomes our main explanation for human behaviour?

Registration opens soon

NVC Paradoxes is a workshop series exploring recurring ideas and assumptions within NVC. Rather than rejecting these ideas, we explore what they offer us, the blind spots they may bring, and what we might discover when we bring other perspectives into the conversation.

About this paradox

One central assumption in Nonviolent Communication is that all human actions are attempts to meet needs

This perspective can radically change how we relate to behaviour we dislike or struggle to understand. Instead of judging, blaming, or labelling others, we can become curious about the needs behind their actions. Even actions we strongly disagree with can become easier to understand.

But what happens when this perspective becomes the only explanation for what people do? In this workshop, we’ll explore whether needs are necessarily what motivate our actions. What about biology, beliefs, culture and social systems? Is understanding an action as an attempt to meet needs always the most useful way to understand it and create connection?

Questions we’ll explore
In each NVC Paradoxes workshop, we explore:

What is valuable in this NVC idea, and what was it responding to?
What can happen when we apply it too broadly or turn it into a general principle?
In this workshop, we’ll look more closely at:

Are needs always what motivate our actions, or are there other ways of understanding human behaviour?
Can we keep the compassion this perspective offers without treating it as an absolute truth?
 
About NVC Paradoxes
NVC Paradoxes grows out of a deep appreciation for Nonviolent Communication and what it has made possible. NVC offers powerful ways to understand human behaviour, relationships, and conflict, and has helped many of us discover possibilities we might otherwise have missed. This project is not about replacing or moving beyond NVC, but about exploring its edges with curiosity.

A paradox can emerge when a valuable insight becomes a principle we no longer question. Ideas that once helped us move beyond the limitations of an earlier approach can develop their own limitations. NVC Paradoxes explores these tensions: what these ideas offer us, what they may leave out, and what can happen when an insight that once opened our thinking begins to narrow it.

By bringing NVC into conversation with other ways of understanding human behaviour, relationships, culture and society, we can explore both its gifts and its blind spots. The aim is not to find a final or more correct perspective, but to widen the lens – holding on to what is valuable in NVC while remaining curious about what else there might be to discover.

Workshop format
Each workshop follows a similar structure:

Arriving together – a short guided practice to settle and become present
The gift of the NVC perspective – exploring what this NVC insight makes possible
Connecting with experience – sharing personal experiences in small breakout groups
The paradox and the wider lens – exploring blind spots and bringing other perspectives into the picture
Reflection and dialogue – sharing discoveries, questions and different perspectives
Practice – experimenting with the topic through role play or another experiential exercise
Integration – reflecting on what we want to take with us into our lives and NVC practice
The workshop includes teaching, personal reflection, small-group conversations, experiential practice, and whole-group dialogue. There will also be a short break.

Workshop Details
Date: 6 December 2026
Time: 18:00-20:00 CET (Berlin Time)
Where: Online/Zoom
Language: English

Upcoming NVC Paradoxes workshops
NVC Paradoxes is an ongoing series of monthly workshops, each exploring a different idea or assumption within NVC. You can join any workshop independently – no previous participation is required.

Upcoming workshops:

8 November 2026 – There Is No Right or Wrong
6 December 2026 – All Actions Are Attempts to Meet Needs
10 January 2027 – Empathy Creates Connection
7 February 2027 – Everyone Is Welcome
7 March 2027 – From Domination to Partnership
11 April 2027 – Every Voice Counts Equally
9 May 2027 – Don’t Do Anything That Isn’t Play
13 June 2027 – Stay in Dialogue

Workshops run monthly through June, followed by a summer break in July and August.

Register for the workshop
Option 1: Single workshop – €30

Registration opens soon

Option 2: Needs Space membership
Join the Needs Space platform and get access to this workshop as part of your membership, along with all the other benefits of Needs Space, including
– live events,
– a growing library of resources, and
– a global online community.

Read more and register here.

 https://www.empathiceurope.com/events/al-aactions-are-attempts-to-meet-needs/

Trainer:
Joachim Berggren

Joachim Berggren is a certified CNVC trainer. He has been a student of NVC since 2009 and has taught his understanding of NVC since 2010. He writes blog posts, offers workshops and hosts events about NVC, as well as offering individual sessions. He is passionate about and intrigued by exploring human connection and our capacity to grow and evolve as individuals and groups throughout our lifetimes.