John Kinyon 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, and with colleague Ike Lasater, has developed an extensive training program in this approach, which now includes multi-day residential retreats and a 9 month program. John also specializes in the spirituality of NVC and NVC as a spiritual practice, incorporating a long study of spiritual traditions and principles of nonviolence, including the work of Carl Rogers, Mahatma Gandhi, David Whyte, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Ken Wilber, Duane Elgin, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and Parmahansa Yogananda.

John has a background in clinical psychology and 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