Daren De Witt offers trainings in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) for the general public, individual NVC coaching and counselling support, NVC-focused relationship counselling, individual and group Constellations sessions with an NVC focus, and IFS (Internal Family Systems) sessions.

Daren lives in Hastings, East Sussex, the United Kingdom and works mainly online. Some in-person support in Hastings and London, UK, may also be possible.

Early Influences

Daren has been on a lifelong journey in the field of personal growth. Born and raised in New Zealand, at the age of seventeen he developed an interest in Buddhism and moved to the U.K. where he spent the next 15 years practising and then teaching Buddhism and meditation. Whilst Daren values the deep philosophical insights of Buddhism, and its compassionate attitude towards life, he grew to feel uncomfortable with the Buddhist attitudes he encountered toward our bodies, sexuality, relationships, and interpersonal communication. He began to explore the field of psychology and obtained a Certificate in Hypnosis and Psychotherapy from the National College – UKCP and a practitioners certificate in NLP (Bandler, McKenna and Breen), as well as undertaking training in voice dialogue and inner child work.

Encountering NVC

Daren came across the book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg in the year 2000, whilst he was working in a community mediation service in East London, and he realised the profound paradigm shift it offers to our world — from a mindset of judgement and blame to one based on compassionate connection to each other’s needs. From the year 2000, Daren trained extensively in NVC, including attending many workshops with NVC creator, Marshall Rosenberg. From 2001 to 2006, Daren was a member of the team that organised Marshall’s visits and trainings in the U.K., and Daren treasures the personal interactions he had with Marshall during this time. In April 2003, Daren qualified as a Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) and he has been offering NVC training for the general public since this time.

Relationship Counselling

Daren deepened his understanding of relationship dynamics through training with the Centre for Gender Psychology, with whom he completed a diploma in couples counselling and relationship psychotherapy in 2008. Through Daren’s relationship counselling practice he enjoys sharing the fruits of this training coupled with his many years of experience of applying NVC in the area of relationships.

Working with Developmental Psychology and Trauma

Since 2015, Daren has augmented his learning and growth by exploring and training in the field of trauma, especially developmental trauma — the type of trauma that develops in us over time in ways that we aren’t always conscious of, especially if it starts in the first years of life before our conscious memory has developed. This exploration and training has supported Daren in his own healing journey. In 2019, Daren completed four years of training in Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IoPT), also known as Identity Constellations Therapy. This is an evolution of the Family Constellations process developed by Burt Hellinger. Identity Constellations explores early development trauma, particularly in relationship to our primary carers, and how that is playing out in our lives on both conscious and unconscious levels.

Since 2021, Daren has been studying Internal Family Systems (IFS) and is now qualified to offer IFS sessions to individuals as an IFS-informed therapist. Daren is excited by the overlap between NVC, IFS, and the Constellations approach and is evolving this into what he calls NVC Healing Constellations.