December 18, 2013

December 18, 2013 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer calls himself a Verbal Behaviorist because he wants the reader to know that his work is an extension of B.F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning. Speaking, listening, writing, reading, being understood, understanding, studying, learning, overt speech and covert speech, involve operants, which are increased or decreased by their consequences. Whatever was reinforced it is more likely to occur in the future. This author would like one particular kind of behaving verbally to occur more often. That is why he advocates for Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). This refers to the use of language in which our communication really works, in which we understand what is said or written, in which we really learn from each other, in which we really feel understood by each other, in which we really enhance each other.

Once SVB is known, it will reinforce itself. It is not known because we have not differentiated between the two dimensions in which we interact with each other. Only in SVB are we in contact with each other and with ourselves. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we are neither in contact with ourselves, nor with each other. In NVB we dissociate from ourselves and each other. In NVB we are incapable of being in touch with our environment, with other people because we are not in touch with ourselves. We live in a world full of NVB, because we are estranged from ourselves. We fail to make contact with others because we are not in contact with ourselves. We accept NVB as our normal way of interacting, because we don’t and can’t think of other people as our environment, because we are used to a spoken communication that is dissociative in nature. 

Only in SVB is it apparent that contact with ourselves is equivalent to contact with others. Contact with ourselves is a function of our contact with others. Once our contact with others is lost, we are no longer in contact with ourselves. One can’t exist without the other. Contact with others never leads to loss of contact with our selves.In NVB we imagine that we are in contact with each other, that we are part of something bigger: our family, team, religion, political party or country. The price we pay, for our fantasy to belong, is that we disconnect from ourselves. This happens due to how we talk. It is hard to believe, at first, that most communication disconnects us from ourselves, but once this truth has been accepted, it becomes obvious how all our problems are related to our loss of contact with our selves. Loss of contact with our selves, strangely, became the basis of our relationships, because our supposed contact with others required us again and again to give up on our contact with ourselves. We will continue our misunderstanding about human relationship if we don’t look into how we interact.

Another way of saying the aforementioned is that our dominant way of communicating, which should be called NVB, although it kept the illusion of human relationship alive, prevented us from imagining our real connection with ourselves and others. Once SVB is established, we notice there was no need to image it. SVB couldn’t be imagined. In SVB we communicate the true nature of human relationship. Experiences of deprivation, neglect, abuse and rejection, could and would only make us long for and dream about idealized human relationship, which is NVB. However, only in SVB do we realize and enjoy the experience of continuity and safety of real human relationship. 

    

Our very notion of an ideal self, of aspirational or sacrificial thoughts, derives from aversive circumstances. It would not come about in an environment that is enhancing. Instead of looking out and changing our environment, we pretend to be looking in and we believe to be working on our non-existent inner selves. Human beings have tried in vain to achieve more trust, courage, confidence, faith and morals. What is the need for that when our environment makes it happen? We did not long for what was possible, we have longed for the impossible. If we had wanted for others what we had wanted for ourselves, we would have had what we wanted. Under the right circumstances we can be ourselves and we know that only this experience can really connect us.