BEYOND EMPATHIC LISTENING
What Coaching Can Add to NVC Practice
Online • 18 & 25 November 2026
BOOK HERE
If you have practised NVC for years, there's a good chance that empathic listening has become your favorite way of supporting people. And for good reason. Empathy can help somebody feel seen. It softens shame, reduces isolation, and creates the safety needed for fearless soul-searching and new perspectives.
Yet many NVC practitioners encounter situations where empathy alone doesn't seem to move the process forward. Do you recognize this:
Your person understands what they feel and need, yet nothing changes.
A familiar story keeps repeating.
Insight is present, but change is elusive.
The question then becomes:
What other ways of accompanying people are available to us while rooted in NVC consciousness?
This workshop explores what happens when we combine the relational depth of Nonviolent Communication with selected competencies from the coaching profession. Because coaching offers additional ways of supporting awareness, choice, integration, and movement.
What We Will Explore:
During these two online sessions, we will explore questions such as:
When is empathy sufficient, and when might something else serve?
If not teaching NVC, how do we facilitate feelings- and-needs awareness?
How can we support people who don’t feel their feelings?
How do we stimulate needs-awareness without being educational?
What can NVC practitioners learn from coaching conversations?
How can classic NVC processes be woven into real-life support conversations?
Throughout, we will experiment with approaches that help people discover their
own meanings, insights, and next steps.
Some of the Topics Include
Empathic guesses versus open-ended questions
Supporting awareness without interpreting
Working with metaphors
Embodiment as a doorway to deeper knowing
Parts awareness and working with conflicting needs
Structuring the process and capturing the loose ends
Roleplays and The Four Chairs process in coaching
Refraining from the pitfall of teaching NVC in a 1:1 support role
The emphasis throughout will be experiential and practical.
Who Is This For?
NVC trainers
Certified and certification-pathway practitioners
NVC facilitators
Mediators
Coaches with a strong NVC foundation
Anyone who regularly accompanies others using NVC
You have the NVC knowledge and experience. We deliver the coaching add-ons.
The workshop is particularly relevant if you have ever found yourself wondering:
"How can I reach this person who doesn’t enjoy my attempts to meet them with empathy?"
Dates
18th of November 2026, 15:00-18:00 CET
25th of November 2026, 15:00-18:00 CET
Course cost
Early Bird until 31st of October: 180 €
Ordinary price: 210 €
Please contact us if you have any questions.
welcome@needsbasedcoaching.com
DAY 1
Awareness
Our first session focuses on the role we occupy when supporting another person.
We will explore the strengths and limitations of feelings-and-needs guessing, examine what coaching brings to the table, and experiment with ways of supporting awareness that do not depend on NVC vocabulary.
The second half of the day introduces a range of coaching-informed approaches, culminating in practice with the Four Chairs process.
DAY 2
Merging the Best of Two Worlds
The second session focuses on integration.
How can we retain the heart of NVC while benefiting from the best of coaching?
Through demonstrations, practice, and reflection, we will explore ways of working with conflicting needs and embedding classic NVC processes into conversations that foster both connection and change.
Our Intention
This is not a workshop about replacing empathy. It is about expanding our repertoire.
Many of us learned NVC as if support happened primarily through empathic presence and needs-consciousness. Coaching offers additional ways of helping people discover clarity, agency, learning, and movement.
When the two are brought together thoughtfully, something new becomes possible. True transformational support through accompaniment and discrete interventions.
Facilitator
Pernille Plantener is an internationally recognized PCC coach, certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication, and Resonant Healing Practitioner, bringing lived experience, neuroscience-informed methods, and gentle presence to trauma-sensitive facilitation. She brings about a felt sense of safety, connection, and transformation, reading the space and walking the talk of what she presents.
Pernille has facilitated groups around the globe and brings a culturally sensitive understanding of power dynamics and historic influences to collective trauma.
