August 9, 2014

August 9, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Yesterday afternoon this writer was reading “Stream of Energy: Using Elementary Principles of Behaviorology to Describe Progressive Neural Emotional Therapy (PNET) by the John B. Ferreira (2013). His applied approach fits exactly with this writer’s description of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). When he was done reading the paper, he was so excited that he wanted to talk with the author and so he tried to find his number online. 

Then, this writer had a great conversation with this wonderful man, who totally acknowledged him. It was amazing how his ideas matched with this writer, whose clinical experience had led him to think in the same direction. SVB is the process in which Ferrreira’s “Stream of Energy” is talked about. This needs to be done of course in behaviorological terms and this author is so happy to be learning more about that from him. 

Ferreira makes a very useful distinction which this writer will  use from now on. Like B.F. Skinner and other behaviorists, he speaks about the environment, which is both inside as well as outside of a person’s skin. The former he calls endovironment and the latter he calls the ectovironment. The constituents of operant conditioning: stimuli, behaviors and consequences, occur in one or the other and need to be separately considered. 

From Ferreira's writing, this writer deduces that the experience of  SVB relates to homeostasis, that is, to endostimuli, endobehavior and endoconsequences. In Noxious verbal Behavior (NVB), on the other hand, one very important ectostimulus (there are others) is our voice. Communicators in NVB participate in ectobehavior, which has ecto - and endoconsequences. Another way of describing SVB is that the harmony that is experienced between endo – and ectoenvironment is achieved and maintained by how we speak. When a verbalizer speaks  at a mediator, this happens in the absence of consideration for the endoconsequences that are experienced by the mediator. This is an example of NVB. When  the verbalizer speaks with the mediator, the endoconsequences of the mediator determine the ectostimulus (voice) of the verbalizer, which causes SVB.

However, for the verbalizers and the mediators of SVB, there is no difference between ectoenvironment and endoenvironment, in other words, communicators only experience one environment. This experience of oneness is very tangible and only occurs in the absence of any reference to an inner self or a higher power. In sharp contrast to the positive and peaceful experience of this shared environment that only occurs in SVB is the negative, coercive and stressful separation that characterizes NVB. The homeostasis experienced with our body, requires a new way of communicating, SVB, which represents the bi-directional relationship between ectoenvironment and endoenvironment.