July 16, 2014

July 16, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

In his new job this writer is required to keep his private speech to himself. When his private speech is different from his public speech, his private speech is having a distracting influence on his public speech. This difference caused him to reveal some of his private speech, which was perceived as distracting from his public speech by his clients. In effect, he was helped by his clients to keep his private speech out of his public speech. It helps to know this, because it allows him to have better public speech. By writing this, this writer feels as if he regained a sense of confidence. This writing is this writer’s way of instructing himself.

It is amazing how comforting this writing is for this writer. By reading what he is saying to himself, he is seeing and getting clear on what is going on more so than when he is only speaking and listening. Writing is a safer and more effective way of stepping back and reflecting than engaging in spoken communication. Until recently this option wasn’t open to him. This writer felt compelled to speak, even if was only with himself. This compulsion, which, due to Catholic upbringing, has been going on for many years, is now slowly decreasing. It has already become much less than it was before and since this is benefiting him, he feels sure that this behavior will eventually extinguish. 

 

This writing is more than just a person talking with himself. This writer is in the process of becoming more knowledgeable about behaviorism and due to his study he is slowly developing a different way of perceiving himself. Now that he is aware that his behavior is always a function of his environment, he is looking at how environmental changes enhance productive and successful behaviors in others as well as in himself. By not revealing to his clients what he is thinking and feeling, he is keeping himself more together and demonstrating to his clients how they can keep themselves together. There is not a whole lot he needs to do. He just needs to relax as much as he can into teaching his classes. This is made possible by keeping his private speech out of his public speech, even though it may still sometimes be distracting him. His distraction is something that his clients can relate to. 

In SVB there is bi-directional speech. The speaker speaks with the listener and the listener, although he or she doesn’t necessarily has to become the speaker, reciprocates what the speaker is saying. However, this can only occur because the speaker is not aversively affecting the listener. In other words, the speaker regulates the listener and the listener is happily listening to the speaker, because nothing is taken away from him or her. To the contrary, something positive is added. Not only does the listener gain understanding of what the speaker is saying, the listener feels included, accepted and respected by and involved with the speaker. This is very different in NVB, in which the listener feels excluded and would like to be included. Although the issue of being included in NVB may be often discussed, the inclusion of the listener by the speaker doesn’t and can’t occur. It can’t occur because of the uni-directional process which is aversive to the listener. When NVB changes to SVB, we all feel the difference. 

When people who sincerely are trying to work through their communication problems are finally are beginning to make sense to each other, it is always because their listening has increased and because they were saying things differently while they were listening to themselves. Since the attention in NVB is on the speaker, on the other, when we are giving more attention to the listener, we are initially still inclined to treat the listener as the other.  In SVB, however, the listener is no longer considered as the other, but as our self, as the speaker. In SVB, we listen to our self while we speak and we listen to each other in the same way as we listen to ourselves. It can be said that in NVB we also listen to each other in the same way as we listen to ourselves. However, in NVB, we don’t listen to ourselves and we don’t listen to each other either. 

To understand SVB, the reader is asked to take the position of the listener, who is capable of speaking with the writer of these words. These words are meant to stimulate the reader to become a speaker, but not NVB speaker, but a speaker, who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, a SVB speaker. It is best to read this text out loud, so that the reader can hear his or her own sound, while he or she says what he or she reads. If the sound that the reader is hearing is a sound that he or she likes to hear more often, these words will encourage the reader to listen to him or herself while he or she speaks.