April 6, 2014

April 6, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

We had friends over for dinner yesterday night and I got drunk. We had a pretty good time, but I was talking too much and now I am feeling a little embarrassed. Although they are good people, they are not into Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). I spoke about my recent developments, but I might as well have spoken about the weather. Rather than sharing my enthusiasm, my friend warned me that someone may be stealing my work and get all the credit. I tried to explain that this was not going to be the case, but it also turned me off, although I didn’t say that. My friend's behavior reminded me of my father, who also always warned me for whatever could go wrong.

People who think they help others by telling them what can go wrong do so because they themselves didn’t succeed. Their lack of success causes them to focus on the possible failure of others. They cover up their own lack of success with a sense of concern for others. They don’t know this, but they want others to fail so that they can then supposedly help them. I have failed many times because of people like that and I still have to be careful with these naysayers. Like I did with my father, I tend to try to convince them that I will succeed, but instead of falling into the trap of justifying myself, I should avoid them. For me success is not determined by trying to prove myself. My friend may mean well, but his effect on me is definitely not good. I had not felt this tendency to prove myself for quite a while, but it was still there. Also, of course, because I was drunk, I talked too much.

I haven’t thought about my father for a long time, but my friend's demeanor made me think of him again. My friend triggered the problematic behavioral pattern I have repeated so many times throughout my life. It is quite useful to revisit this pattern and to look at it. It has been such a problem for me because I didn’t know how it worked. What has changed is that I don’t get angry anymore. Due to my success, I don’t need anyone's approval. However, it feels awkward, to be successful without my father and to know he will never be part of what I have discovered and had wanted to share with him.

SVB, like language, doesn’t belong to anyone and cannot be possessed. It cannot be stolen because it is a shared phenomenon. Stealing the idea of SVB doesn’t even arise, because SVB is not an idea, but a natural process. All ideas are verbal behaviors, which are made possible due to contingencies of reinforcement. Those who believe SVB is an idea which can be stolen, don’t understand what it is. Their view characterizes Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). SVB cannot be given to anyone, nor can it be taken away, just like  Mandarin cannot be given to anyone or taken away. It is only possible to learn Mandarin by being exposed to the members of the Mandarin verbal community or to educational books, videos or texts. Likewise, NVB, the verbal behavior which contains all our problems and misconceptions, is also taught and learned. We acquire all our problems in the same way that we acquire our language. It is pragmatic to treat our problems as a way of talking. We don’t know how to solve our problems because we don’t speak Mandarin. 

SVB is a new language and NVB is our old way of talking. We can have SVB and NVB while we are speaking Mandarin or any other language, because SVB or NVB are based on positive or negative emotions respectively. We have never treated communication of positive or negative emotions as two different languages. When we do, it becomes very clear that expertise in one often involves a deficit in the other. Those who know SVB, the language of positive emotions, of course, they don’t want to speak NVB, the language of negative emotions. They can speak it, but they don’t want to. However, those who know NVB, the language of negative emotions, can’t speak SVB, even if they had wanted to. They try, but fail. Although it shouldn’t be considered their failure, they only know NVB. We don’t say that English speaking people fail to speak Mandarin, they simply don’t know it. They may only speak a few words, but that is all they know. The only way for an English person to learn Mandarin is to take classes and to communicate with members from this verbal community, such as a teacher. Likewise, the only way to learn SVB is to be introduced to someone from this verbal community. In the same way one’s first language facilitates one’s second language, NVB facilitates SVB. One must have a first language to learn a second language. In behaviorism different languages are called equivalence classes. Just as different languages were learned in different environments, so too do SVB and NVB have their origins in different environments. By moving away from the environment of negative emotions in which one was raised one is stimulated to learn a new language, which over time extinguishes one’s old language.