Talk:Severe Mental Illness and NVC

Ventura County,CA Behavioral Health Dept Intensive Psychiatric Unit

Liz Otterbein, R.N. is a certified NVC trainer who has been working in the Intensive Pyschiatric Unit (IPU) for about twelve years on weekends. The IPU is part of Ventura County,CA Behavioral Health Dept and is located at Hillmont,Ventura and has forty-five beds.
She uses the principles of NVC as an anger management technique. As the IPU is a crisis unit for acute care, a number of patients are admitted under a legal hold as they are deemed to be a danger to self or others. They are typically feeling very angry, not only at the situation that initially aroused their anger but also because they have been forcibly restrained by the police and bought into the unit under duress. She incorporates the principles of NVC in her discussions with the patients and, as a result, they calm down very rapidly. Tim's story illustrates such a discussion in which a very angry young man becomes peaceful and starts taking constructive action for himself in about thirty minutes without any use of violence, threats or medications because he is treated with respect, understanding and offered compassion and empathy. Liz labels describes the process she uses as anger management. It is primarily based on the principles and techniques of NVC.

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