About John Kinyon

John has been training with NVC for over 10 years and has been developing and evolving an approach to mediating conflict for the past 7 years with colleague Ike Lasater, beginning with a journey together to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to work with Afghan tribal elders in 2002, shortly after the bombings following 9/11. From this experience they saw first hand that despite cultural differences and multiple language translations, the NVC mediation process produced connection and collaborative resolution, even with a real dispute that came alive in the room during the training. Their mediation training now includes telecourses, workshops, residential retreats and year-long training programs in the U.S. and a growing number of countries around the world including Sweden, Holland, Poland, Hungary, Australia and New Zealand, and possibilities opening in China, Argentina and India. (If you would like, see Testimonials further below)

John has facilitated NVC mediation on just about every level of human relations since 2002, including couples, family, community, business, legal contexts and institutions. In organizations he has had particular experience with family businesses. His mediation practice has included an entire graduate faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles, the Executive vice Chancellor and all the vice chancellors at another UC system university, numerous family businesses, families with inheritance issues, faculty and administration in alternative schools, personal and business partnership dissolutions, and individuals and groups desiring conflict coaching and communication training support. John's mediation practice continues to expand as the word spreads of this alternative to the mainstream problem solving approach to mediation.

John is a leading trainer of the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) and a co-founder of the BayNVC organization in the San Francisco area. John works with individuals, groups, and organizations and has offered conflict resolution and communication skills training to thousands of people around the world, including work with Afghan tribal elders along the Pakistani border in early 2002. He has worked closely with NVC founder Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. since 1998 and is regularly invited to be a staff trainer with him at 9-day international intensive trainings. John specializes in NVC mediation facilitation and training. With colleague Ike Lasater they have developed an extensive training program in this approach, which now includes international multi-day residential retreats and 9 month programs. John also incorporates the spirituality of NVC into his work, integrating a long study of diverse spiritual traditions and the work of people such as Carl Rogers, Mahatma Gandhi, David Whyte, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Ken Wilber, Duane Elgin, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and Parmahansa Yogananda.

John’s background is in psychology, psychotherapy and research, and he has started three businesses. He received his B.A. from the University of San Francisco, where he majored in studies of psychology and philosophy and played for their nationally ranked soccer team. He went on to receive an M.S. degree in clinical psychology from Penn State University, spending 5 years of doctoral training working as a psychotherapist with individuals and groups and as a research assistant at the Penn State Stress and Anxiety Disorders Institute. He then helped start and develop a small business in the gourmet food industry before becoming a full time NVC trainer in 2000 and subsequently starting two NVC businesses. John lives with his wife and three children in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information about NVC and John’s work see www.johnkinyon.com, www.baynvc.org, www.cnvc.org, and Puddle Dancer Press.