Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, a respected advocate for nonviolent communication, will speak tonight on "Compassion Works: A Practical Way to Communicate" at the Kaimuki High School Auditorium.

"We show people how to radically transform what's going on inside themselves," says Rosenberg, who's spent the last four decades in areas such as Rwanda, Palestine and Serbia.

While his forte is helping people caught in political hotspots, he says his message is for everyone. "Here is the chance to transform blame, criticism and guilt into something more fun and less costly," he says. "Nonviolent communication reframes how we express ourselves, how we hear others and how we resolve conflicts by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing and requesting."

Nonviolent communication teaches people first to articulate their needs, says Rosenberg, then "to connect with what's alive in the person you're communicating with. When you do that sincerely, the person knows and trusts that you care for them."

Rosenberg, who grew up in a turbulent Detroit neighborhood, has a doctorate in clinical psychology and started promoting nonviolent communication in the 1960s. He has worked with inner-city street gangs, the Maori in New Zealand and First Nations people in Canada.

"Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are one and the same," says Rosenberg.