May 13, 2014

May 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It is within the possibility of this writer to read and study the works of others. If he wanted to, he could comment word by word, on the many papers that have been published, but this is not his goal. Today he realizes the academic career he once hoped to achieve, didn’t happen. When he didn’t know what he knows today, he intended to become a psychologist, but, now that he knows about behaviorism, his interest in psychology has vanished. Mental health problems, which once fascinated him, no longer have any appeal, because they are explained.

Since he doesn’t publish (yet) any works in peer-reviewed journals, he doesn’t feel obliged to adhere to a particular style of writing, which is approved by the scientific community. This is, however, congruent with his discovery and exploration of two categories which organize and determine our spoken communication: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Although everyone who comes to his seminars acknowledges this difference, except for the few individuals who have participated more than once, there is no verbal community yet which recognizes this distinction on a continuous basis.

In the same way that this author finds it reinforcing to stay focused on only those aspects of spoken communication, which, although they are available to everyone, are mostly discarded, he only writes about these matters in a manner, which he finds reinforcing. Academic writing is as limiting to him as our usual way of communicating. To stay as close as possible to the discovery he has made, this writer speaks and writes in a particular way to explain to the reader and the listener why his finding is of such great importance.

Now that this writer has articulated of what his speech and his writing is a function, he realizes that things can be written and said which cannot be said or written without this knowledge. This is as true for the reader or the listener as for the writer or the speaker. There are things which can only be written or said when the writer or the speaker is not distracted or obliged by what someone else has written or said. Private matters can only be articulated in a conversation if there is no interruption from other speakers. 

Similarly, certain things can only be elaborated on and accurately articulated in writing, if, during this writing, the attention of the author stays focused on what he or she experiences privately. This has nothing to do, however, with introspection. Since there is nothing to be seen inside of our skin and since there are no external stimuli distracting us from what we privately think or feel, a change will occur in how we covertly talk with ourselves. 

The private speech which we experience when we are reacting to what others are saying and writing is very different from the self-talk that is not a reaction to what others have written or said. The former self-talk gives access to our private events, but the latter prevents us from such access. Only through our private speech do we gain access to our private events. Positive private speech gives us more access to our private events than negative private speech. 

Since negative private speech always signifies the occurrence of a real or a perceived threat, it is not suitable for the exploration of what we experience individually or what moves us as a whole organism. Only a part of what we decide to do or not do is known to us and can only be known to us. Once this part is known, we can talk or write about it. We can help others gain access to those parts which have remained unknown to them, but which can only be known by them. 

The reader or the participant in the seminars which this author regularly organizes need to know about behaviorism in order to be able to gain access to his or her covert speech. Currently, this access remains impaired because of NVB, our predominant way of communicating. Although in our NVB private speech is excluded and comparti-mentalized, which means disconnected, from public speech, this doesn’t mean that we don’t have it or don’t have a need to express it. The urge is so strong that in NVB we forcefully express our negative self-talk, as long as we can get away with it. When we suppress it, it causes other problems. Either way, our NVB public and private speech wreaks havoc. 

The reason NVB hasn’t been analyzed and is because of domination, coercion, humiliation, oppression and forcefulness. Moreover, NVB is based on our lack of access to our private speech. This lack is maintained by our public speech, that is, in NVB, private speech is considered to be separate from public speech. In SVB, by contrast, the opposite is the case: private speech (positive as well as negative) is seen as a function of our public speech (SVB as well as NVB).

NVB is not communication because it always excludes our positive private speech from our public speech. Oddly enough, it includes our negative self-talk into our negative public speech, which continues to undermine our relationships. The justification for this is that our positive self-talk makes us look weak, while our negative self-talk presumably makes us look strong. That only our negative self-talk is over-represented in our public speech prevents both the oppressed as well as the oppressor from exploring their negative private speech. Once this exploration occurs and once the distinction between SVB and NVB is clear, communicators will find out that NVB is a communication stopper, since it excludes our positive emotions.