Nonviolent Self Defense (NSD) is a system of self-protection and humane control developed in the 1970s by Harvard-trained psychologist Dr. William Paul.
NSD was devised for use by mental health professionals who dealt with potentially violent psychiatric patients on a daily basis. NSD is a system of integrated self-defense and control skills based on whole-body movement and pliancy. The system features evasion, deflection, dodging, disengagement, and restraint. NSD does not allow any offensive movements (kicking, striking, etc.) other than the use of humane restraint. Nonviolent Self Defense is now used by mental health, social service, law enforcement, and education professionals throughout the United States for nonviolent crisis intervention.
Famous quotes containing the words nonviolent and/or defense:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)