December 30, 2013

December 30, 2013

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

The reader with a behavioral history of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) , in other words, everyone who reads this,  has to face the fact that this writing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) may sum up its paradoxes, but it can’t replace the experience. Once the reader engages in SVB, he or she will experience and know, without doubt, that he or she has been mostly involved in NVB. This is a realization of massive proportion, which takes time to digest. Another understanding one has to come to terms with is that everybody is almost constantly involved NVB. One doesn’t want to believe it is that bad, but it is. Furthermore, because we are all y stuck in NVB, old categories don’t matter anymore. Surely, if we are really going to engage in SVB, we are going to see the emergence of an entirely new social order. 

SVB changes everything we know. It makes us let go of what we know. It makes us experience ourselves and each other in a new way. It transforms us. Who could have thought that spoken communication would leave us without an identity? Who could have imagined that interaction would be the ultimate way to regulate each other, so that we can be peaceful and in awe of each other’s uniqueness? In SVB thinking speeds up and becomes clear. There is a flow, fluidity, creativity and energy to our conversation. In SVB, memory is enhanced due to rehearsal by others. In SVB people talk and listen simultaneously, feeding of each other, fine-tuning the conversation with sometimes  six or seven people, who can talk, at the same time.

In SVB our hearts are lifted and our needs are met because we are connectedand bonded. We can be ourselves and we understand that only SVB can facilitate this. We know that we are listened to. We can and will say different things when others are listening. We know when we are listening to ourselves. We know that others are listening to us when we are capable of listening to ourselves. However, to listen to someone doesn’t mean that we can’t simultaneously say something. In SVB, we thrive on confrontation and challenge, we invite and enjoy it. Confrontation isn’t possible in NVB. In NVB we don't meet, because nobody can be themselves.

Another fact about SVB is that it is spontaneous. Feely-touchy people have made spontaneity into something it isn’t. It became such a central issue for them because it was lacking. It is lacking in NVB, but in SVB it is no longer an issue. When people experience SVB for the first time, they usually immediately loose it, because they are so baffled that they were actually spontaneous. The weird paradox here is that they didn’t think it was possible. Thinking that it is possible, however, makes us as unlikely to be spontaneous as thinking that it is impossible. Fact is, spontaneity is possible if circumstances are conducive to it.  It isn’t a person who is spontaneous, but the circumstances under which certain persons, who due to their behavioral history have a lower threshold for perceiving such circumstances, will respond to them. That’s why certain people can see the humor in things, while other people can’t. Cartoons are good examples of this. People may pretend to be spontaneous, but spontaneity simply can’t exist in NVB. Their scripted way of communicating makes it seem as if they are alive, but, psychologically, they are dead. To cover up that they childishly demand and ask attention, they create a lot of hype. They are the creators of canned applause. 

In SVB, by contrast, our communication creates and maintains attention and it makes energy available. In SVB people are conscious and energized, even in old age, but in NVB people are unconscious, dull, mechanical, predetermined, boring, predictable and serious. NVB is repetitive, tiring and uninteresting. 

NVB is unscientific because it is based on a person’s bias. SVB, by contrast, is scientific, because it is based on verification and replication. In NVB there is a lack of accountability, whereas in SVB there is responsibility and integrity. NVB and SVB are totally separate processes. NVB can’t and doesn’t communicate with SVB. Also, SVB can’t and doesn’t communicate with NVB.  SVB can only interact with SVB and NVB can only interact with NVB. The idea that we can all get along is false. 

When SVB meets NVB, SVB always changes into NVB, but when NVB  meets SVB, it never changes into SVB. This can be compared to an ice cube melting in a drink. It is not that ice cube cools down the drink, but that the melting ice distracts the heat from the drink. In a similar way NVB distracts energy from SVB. NVB prevents us from being our natural selves and makes us believe that NVB is better than our natural selves. It isn’t, but that doesn’t mean people don’t buy into it. In NVB, communication is nothing but a cheap sales process. People actively try to sell each other their verbal and nonverbal messages. If they are not sold then they are not buying it. SVB can’t be bought or sold. Seen by this author, the biggest problem in promoting SVB isn’t that it can’t be sold, (he knows), but it can’t be bought. SVB isn’t a commodity and it will never be. 

SVB doesn’t change a person, but it changes how this person behaves.  This difference is important yet easily overlooked. When we look at the change in behavior, in how a person speaks, we stop assuming that this person is communicating this or that way, because he or she feels or thinks this way. Even what a person thinks or feels is a behavior which is shaped by his or her environment. Once we step away from the inferred inner entity that supposedly causes behavior, there is only the environment to look at and nothing inside of us. In effect, we only look at what we can see, hear or touch. We are not inferring anything about what goes on inside a person’ s head, but we see how they move, we hear how they sound and we can sense whether they are safe. Our focus on observable behavior sets the stage for tremendous change. In addition to changing from NVB to SVB, many other behaviors are changing. When SVB happens,  new behavioral repertoires are shaped. When NVB occurs, change can’t happen and people become more and more stuck in certain rigid patterns of behavior. 

As the reader must know, this writing is produced from a SVB perspective. A NVB communicator couldn’t come up with any of this. This author has engaged in thousands of conversations during which he has explored and investigated together with others the workings of SVB. It is this behavioral history of SVB public speech, which changed the private self-talk, the covert speech, the way this writer thinks. A different kind of public speech stimulates this writer to write like this.

We all know what is referred to in this writing is possible, but we keep missing it because our way of communicating does not allow it. This author calls our way of communicating NVB, because our voices express nervous systems which are dis-regulated. In NVB we dis-regulate each other, but in SVB we co-regulate each other. We all have experienced moments of SVB, but we haven’t explored it on an ongoing basis. SVB is possible, but we must speak in order to verify it.