January 5, 2014

January 5, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

While reading something that is enriching one’s well-being the reader should know with certainty that what he or she was  reading was enhancing to the writer too. If writers make available something that was worth making available then readers will be benefitted. This bidirectional aspect is often lost in writing as well as in speaking. The reason this happens is because nobody knows how to accurately communicate it. To do that, the writer must make it his or her goal to tap into his or her joy of writing, but with the specific purpose of talking with the reader about why this is so enjoyable. As few  writers write well enough to be able to do this, not much has been written on this topic. This writer, who knows what he is talking about, maintains that most writers can’t write about it, because they don’t know how to achieve it in their spoken conversation. The exact description of spoken communication can produce writing which is bidirectional. The verbal is embedded in and emerging from the nonverbal and writing is a function of spoken communication. That writing may seem to exist separate from talking indicates how out of touch with speech we are. Readers feel relieved because such writing makes them forget and takes them away from spoken communication. 

What is distracting us from spoken communication is not helping us to get any better at it. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distracts us from and thus prevents Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). However, each time NVB stops, and it does stop, SVB presents itself again. Yet, NVB never stops long enough for us to recognize what SVB really is. For this to happen we must begin to discriminate the contingencies of reinforcement that set the stage for SVB. As we identify and describe stimuli that make SVB possible, we also begin to recognize the circumstances of which NVB is a function. 

We can’t recognize NVB without first recognizing SVB. The understanding of NVB is preceded by the discovery of SVB. We weren’t able to acknowledge the negative consequences of NVB, because we weren’t capable of continuing with SVB. We couldn’t continue with our SVB, because something was wrong with our environment. Nothing was wrong with us. We are conditioned to think that there is something wrong with  us or with others, but this perspective prevents us from looking at our environment. There is, of course, also nothing right or wrong about our environment, but fact is that SVB couldn’t continue in an environment in which stimuli that made it possible are no longer present. Such stimuli at one moment are there, but may be gone the next moment. It is because we don’t notice the presence or the absence of these stimuli that we can’t continue SVB and inadvertently produce NVB.