March 11, 2014

March 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M. S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

As I was explaining in my previous writing, my self-listening had a long history. Because of my familiarity with singing and listening to myself I was inclined to pay closely attention enough to go on with it. I don’t mean to elaborate on this history as anything special, but I think it is important, because it played a decisive role in that one moment that I found that gong. From that moment on I began to listen to myself and I have never stopped with it. 

Many people at some moment have listened to themselves, but they did not go on with it. When I explain it, they immediately understand it, because they have already experienced it. The only difference between me and them is that I went on with it, in spite of the amount of rejection it evoked. It is due to this rejection that most people don’t go on with it. Stated differently, most people have a sense that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) it is possible, that it is enjoyable and meaningful, but they can’t continue with it, because there is nothing to continue it with. They are not reinforced for their SVB, but they are reinforced for their Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and so they go on with that. 

When we have SVB, many sources of reinforcement become available to us.  However, these sources are only valuable to the extent that they reinforce SVB. Many behaviors can begin to occur in response to SVB which distract from it. Ironically, reinforcement that becomes available due to SVB often results in an increase of exactly those behaviors which make it impossible. In my case it also did that, but because of my behavioral history with listening to my own sound, I was experiencing such punitive consequences each time I was having NVB, that I was more inclined to go on with SVB. For most of us NVB is reinforced, but not for me. For me NVB never seemed to have worked. 

 

Let me give a couple of examples to illustrate why I was, more than others, inclined to listen to myself. My coercive father had a saying he often repeated: “Those who don’t listen will have to feel.” He threatened to hit his children if they did not do as he said. I was afraid of him, because he hit me many times. I tried very hard to listen to him, but out of nervousness I misunderstood him. My father and many other people, who I now recognize as representatives of NVB, have told me over and over again that I am NOT listening. When I wasn’t yet capable of understanding that they were the ones who were not listening (to themselves), the accusation that I was not listening was confusing and upsetting. Those who have NVB always blame those who actually listen. However, those who want to listen, don’t want to listen to NVB. Those who want to listen, want to listen to SVB, but are accused of hearing only what they want to hear. As a result of my allegiance with my mother and my sisters, who were scolded stiff by my father, I felt pain each time I didn’t understand him. Misunderstanding became painful because it was followed by my father's punishment and abuse. 

Nobody wants pain. If we can avoid it, we will. Of course, I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of my father’s anger. It took me years to realize that he hit me because he felt misunderstood by me. Yet, I felt misunderstood by him and my need for his approval brought me again and again in a situation in which he rejected me. A lot of my authority-challenging behavior was reinforced by my father’s rejection. I got his negative attention, which was better than no attention at all and became an expert in attracting negative attention.

When I discovered opera, I was attracted, because it was an outlet for my pain and loneliness, but it also made me get positive attention. I was reinforced by my success and even my father liked it. He had been singing in a choir for years and approved of my choice to become a tenor singer. At the time, I had records of all the great operas and all the great singers and I sang up to five hours a day. The more dramatic the music, the more I liked it. I was drawn to lyrical expression of sorrow and I was good at it. However, once I began to study at the Conservatory, it was no longer exciting. Surprisingly, singing was only a small part of the study. Because I was no longer reinforced by my former singing teacher and because I was assigned to a homosexual, who during my audition had decided that he should be my teacher, I lost my interest and gave up. Although I gave up on something, I had given myself the opportunity to discover something new.