December 6, 2013

December 6, 2013

Dear Reader, 

Although people have conditioned us to talk in a particular way and although we are not reinforced if we talk in a way which is different from what we were taught, this writer knows something about spoken communication which most people don’t know: there is only one way to communicate. We either communicate or we don’t. When we communicate, we will have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). We speak with, listen to, understand and reciprocate each other, when we pay attention to how we sound. In SVB we sound good, because we simultaneously feel good. If we feel anxious, angry, afraid, stressed or confused, we produce Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). When we experience these negative feelings, we sound horrible. In NVB our sound becomes an aversive stimulus, which others, listeners, whether they know it or not, want to move away from. In NVB we move away from each other and from ourselves, we dissociate.

 

When we disconnect from ourselves and each other,, we do not communicate. We only communicate when we connect with ourselves and with each other. The idea that we can have communication by only connecting with ourselves, but not with each other, is absolutely wrong. We are equally mistaken if we believe that we can connect with others, but not with ourselves. In SVB we simultaneously connect with ourselves and with each other. Since our connection with others determines our connection with our selves, our connection with ourselves is a function of our connection with others. By losing our connection with others, we have lost our connection with ourselves and, like a child, that cries for its mother, we produce an attention-demanding sound. 

A child, who is incapable of language, expresses its need for comfort by crying. The child can’t attend to itself and needs the attention from the mother. When the mother attends to the child, the needs of the child are met. When the child is happy, the mother is happy with her child. A mother’s happiness depends on the happiness of her child. If the child is not happy, the mother isn’t happy either. However, a mother’s unhappiness impairs her ability to care for her child. If a mother can’t make her child happy, this is extremely stressful for her. Moreover, an unhappy mother creates an unhappy child, who doesn’t and can’t get the attention it needs. An unhappy verbal mother is incapable of caring for her nonverbal child. 

 

The lack of care that has occurred during a child’s nonverbal stage of development continues to express itself nonverbally, even though the child may acquire language. Due to this pre-verbal lack of attention children are bound to develop problems with expressive and receptive language. Difficulties in making themselves verbally understood and problems in understanding what others are verbally saying indicate that they were non-verbally, not appropriately responded to and listened to. Their natural need for nonverbal attention can neither be verbally addressed nor fulfilled and their speech as well as their lack of speech will demand the constant attention from others. Demand for attention is at the core of all NVB.

  

A verbal adult speaker produces NVB when he or she demands to get nonverbal attention from the listener. In SVB, analogous with the mother-child relationship, the verbally-skilled speaker gives attention to the nonverbal listener, who then in turn gives attention to the non-verbal speaker. Thus, in SVB attention is increased and enhanced by maintenance of alignment between verbal and nonverbal expressions of reciprocal well-being. In NVB, by contrast, the verbal speaker takes advantage of the nonverbal listener. Because in NVB what is said is more important than how it is said, the nonverbal listener is kept hostage by a speaker’s verbal antics and acrobatics. The fact that we all struggle verbally to get the attention from others indicates that something was missing while we grew up. Our struggle for attention primarily expresses itself nonverbally, in how we sound. Since we want what we want from others, our attention in NVB is away from ourselves. We get carried away by our verbal expressions and we sound increasingly more aversive, because we fail to recognize that our real need is nonverbal and can’t be satisfied by any words. 

      

Our parents didn’t and couldn’t teach us about SVB, because they didn’t even know it existed. SVB is hardly reinforced by anyone because as of yet only very few people know about it. However, SVB needs reinforcement by others and as long as others are not really there, we will have to continue with our NVB. Unfortunately, our use of language is determined, and, above all, limited by our negative emotions, which are the expressions of our biological need for safety and comfort. There can be no comfort in language if we remain non-verbally, physiologically dis-regulated. When language itself separates us from the reality, we might as well have no language at all. Our refusal to speak or our inability to effectively participate in communication is caused by NVB. Early deterioration of the aging brain and greater loss of memory are also predicted by NVB and can be kept at bay with SVB. As stated before, all sorts of mental health problems can be explained from this scientific SVB/NVB paradigm.