March 9, 2014

March 9, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

I read a paper in which Skinner was saying we need a new unit of analysis which consists of form and meaning. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are my extensions of Skinner’s work. SVB and NVB are such a new units. These categories of Verbal Behavior beautifully organize how we speak with one another.  

In NVB things are organized differently than in SVB. In NVB there is a hierarchy. Although a speaker may speak, he or she may only speak when he or she is spoken to. In NVB speakers dominate and ignore listeners, who are often not allowed to speak and who are forced to listen. Understanding in NVB means something completely different than in SVB; in NVB we are forced to conform to authority, which means that we are listening outwardly, to others and not inwardly, to ourselves.  Those in authority, who in NVB do all the talking, make others to listen to them, but they too are not listening to themselves.

In NVB there are no stimuli that make us listen to ourselves.  Speakers and listeners are outward-oriented in NVB. Someone is in control and others are controlled, but both the controller and the controlled focus in NVB on what happens outside of themselves. Thus, in NVB, what happens within our skin, our private speech, can’t become part of our public speech.

In SVB private speech is considered as a function of public speech. Negative NVB self-talk is caused by negative NVB public speech and positive SVB self-talk is caused by positive SVB public speech. Actually, negative self-talk is not caused by negative public speech, but rather, it is part of negative public speech, because negative emotions are the basis for NVB and positive emotions are the basis for SVB. 

Once we listen to the sound of our own voice while we speak, SVB can and will occur. When this happens, when a speaker really hears him or herself, while he or she speaks, this instantly ameliorates our negative self-talk. Indeed, only self-listening can make a new kind of public speech possible, but without it, it can and it will not occur. NVB is not so much based on the impossibility of self-listening, but is based on the absence of what stimulates self-listening. There is a great difference between these two, because in the former we are likely to think that something is wrong with us, but we don't show this, while in the latter, we look outside of ourselves and we find that the stimuli that make SVB possible were missing. Instead of finding fault with ourselves for not being able to produce SVB, we acknowledge that NVB was produced by the stimuli that were present. In both SVB and NVB we are not responsible for the way in which we speak, because our verbal behavior is a function of the environment. In SVB speakers and listeners treat each other as their environment. 

 

Without an environmental perspective, we remain stuck with NVB. We can’t prolong those moments in which we experience SVB if we remain unaware that our situation has changed. Change of behavior won’t happen if we continue to believe that we are responsible for causing the change. Change happens because stimuli are either present or absent. Contingencies of reinforcement set the stage for change; stimuli of which NVB is a function can be replaced by stimuli that maintain SVB. 

The meaning of SVB is in changing the situation. Loss of meaning which occurs in NVB is because change is prevented. The form of NVB is rigid and repetitive, while the form of SVB is flexible and original. NVB obsesses about exclusion, but SVB invites and includes. SVB explores and discovers, while NVB dissociates and ignores. Loneliness is the form of NVB, but togetherness is the form of SVB. We speak with each other in SVB, but we speak at each other in NVB. In SVB meaning is re-created and re-discovered, but in NVB meaning is lost because it is mechanically repeated. 

In SVB we are conscious communicators, but in NVB we are imprisoned by habits which change the sound of our voice.  In NVB we speak with a voice which is not our true sound, in SVB we find our voice and embody our communication.  Because of how we speak we are conscious or unconscious. The sound of our voice makes us and keeps us conscious. 

When I began to listen to the sound of my own voice, it was because it reminded me of how my parents had interacted with me. During my childhood talking with them had made me feel completely at ease. I grew up with a loving mother and two older sisters. My father was off to work during the day and I was surrounded by women. There was plenty of sensitivity going around to which also my grandmothers, aunts and neighbors added their part. As my parents were Catholics, the issue of anti-conception was taboo. More children were God’s will and a priest regularly checked if a new child was on its way. So, after my two younger brothers and younger sister were born, my mother was no longer able to give me the attention she had been giving me when I was her only son. Moreover, three more siblings had made her feel overwhelmed. With six children to care for, my mother became stressed and moody. 

The calm and peaceful first years of my life were over and I was one of six children battling to get my parents attention. Since I got the attention in a negative way, this was mostly reinforced. By the time I reached puberty I felt very isolated. The impact of kind females and later the absence of this, had shaped my behavior and my preferences Although I was deeply unhappy as a young adult, I knew that I was missing something that I had once experienced.  

Listening to my self was a predictable consequence of my frustration with my communication with my parents. For many years I felt I was looking for something I had lost, which I had once possessed. My search for myself had only made me more unsure about what I wanted and left me unable to satisfy my need for connection with other. I couldn’t find well-being like I once experienced and felt rejected and misunderstood. My parents, who had certainly loved me as a child, couldn’t communicate with me as an adult. They expressed anxiety and fear and I repeatedly fell into the pattern of still seeking their approval. Also, I was demanding approval from many others.  

Full of despair, I began to talk out loud with myself. To my own surprise this gave me a great sense of relief. I was able to say to myself what others didn’t want to hear and I decided that if others didn’t want to listen to me then I would listen to myself. This allowed me to formulate to myself what I wanted. I began to accept that I wanted to communicate in a way that others weren’t able to. Others weren’t able to talk like me because they didn’t want it as much. My urge to talk with others in the same way as I talked with myself set the stage for my discovery. I discovered SVB all by myself. In behaviorism, an establishing operations determines the effectiveness of a reinforcer. In other words, water is only reinforcing when we are thirsty.  You could say that I was very thirsty for communication.

While talking out loud by myself, I discovered that spoken communication is only reinforcing when I listen to myself while I speak. With no distraction from others, I spoke with a voice which enhanced my own sense of well-being. I became intrigued and excited by this immediate positive effect and I decided to explore this because it made me feel so incredibly good. I found that I sounded good only when I didn’t try to sound good. I figured that self-listening, which made me sound so good, should also be possible when I was talking with others and I tried to test this. It was possible, but only for a short while. It went well for a moment, but then, for some unknown reason, it was no longer possible. I tried my best to get it back, but I couldn’t and the harder I tried, the more I failed. Frustrated once more with my communication with others, I returned to my solitude and talked again out loud by myself. Once I did that, it became very apparent that in my conversation with others I had lost my self-listening. 

What made me lose my resonant sound when I talked with others and what made me find it back while I was talking by myself? I had to find it out and the only way to do this was to thoroughly investigate it. Again and again, I had to leave my conversation with others to check in with myself. Although I was absolutely sure something was affecting the sound of my voice, I was unable to figure out what it was. 

Years went by during which I tried to meditate and become enlightened. At one point, I even believed that I had reached it. What I had achieved, however, was an understanding about a new way of communicating. I wanted to communicate in a way in which only very few are able to communicate. These few others, however, reinforced me. I looked everywhere for people to talk with and once I had found them, I would talk and often burst in tears. Oddly, each time I cried I felt relieved, cleansed and at peace. Crying then felt like a blessing to me. 

This writing, which, of course, is only a selection of certain parts of my behavioral history, is to inform the reader about how I came to put SVB together. Although I don’t think that anyone needs to travel my path (or anyone else’s path for that matter), I think that my behavior is similar to the reader’s behavior, because it is shaped the environment. To shed light on this interaction between organism and the environment, I want to illustrate to the reader how my previous environments have shaped my current behavior.