NON VIOLENT RESISTANCE

DR PETER JAKOB

Non Violent Resistance aims to change family relationships, when children and young people show violent, aggressive or self-destructive behaviour.  For many of these families there are multiple stresses and high levels of trauma. NVR core principles are applied to help family members develop a sense of safety within the larger system, so that the nuclear family itself can become a safe and supportive recovery environment.

This day long event will introduce participants to the core principles of NVR, as well as giving them an insight into the trauma-focused model that has been developed by Dr Peter Jakob, for using nonviolence in transforming relationships within the larger system around the family, helping parents process their own traumatic experience, and re-kindling the “caring dialogue” between parent and child.

Raising parental presence is the main therapeutic factor of the approach. Young people’s aggressive behaviours usually have a controlling function, and parents learn to accommodate their child, giving in to unreasonable demands or acting submissively. Alternating with such responses, they may at times engage in symmetrical escalation, with parent and child each attempting to control the other.

NVR helps parents reverse loss of presence by introducing positive direct action methods for challenging harmful behaviour in non-punitive ways; enabling them to retrieve parental agency and develop socially authorized authority.

This event has been funded by the Scottish Government.