October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

After nine hours of sleep this writer is feeling fresh and awake on a  Saturday morning. It has been a busy and intense week, which ended in a pleasant and relaxing manner. Friday morning group went well and the conversation about communication put the events which had happened during the week in perspective. Also the afternoon, during which there was no group and during which this writer was able to catch up on his paperwork, was smooth sailing. 

A new development happened this week. The two persons this writer is daily working with are two women. Unfortunately, his boss, who coordinates the job-site and his colleague, who like him, also leads groups and does case management, are manic talkers. They never say things in a simple manner, but use a lot of words to say what they say. Especially his colleague is extremely controlling and intrusive in the way in which she speaks. His boss is controlling to a lesser degree because she is, because of her position, entitled to elaborate more on how things are supposed to go.

Although he often misses what his boss is saying, because she talks so fast, he finds it easier to talk with her and to understand her, because she adjusts to him much more than his colleague, whose voice sounds very demanding. When the two of them are talking it is almost impossible to get in between them. This writer has learned not do that anymore and to wait until they give him the opportunity to say something. This works much better and helps this writer to stay calm. 

This writer considers the voices of his boss and his colleague most of the time as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). By staying out of their NVB as much as possible, he is slowly but surely having more Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) with  them.

  

By just listening to their NVB, he is not getting involved in NVB himself and when he speaks they have also more attention for him. His colleague often says things which are annoying and challenging, while his boss more often says things, which are supportive and giving structure. By saying less, this writer is having better communication and able to maintain his peace of mind. 

It is difficult for everyone to figure out how to communicate with each other. This writer, due to his discovery of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), sees things not the same as most people do. Moreover, since his views about spoken communication are explained by behavioral science, he no longer adheres to the false notion that the communicators cause their own verbal behavior.

Throughout the week there was a lot of communication going on about the manipulative behaviors of the parolees and the probationers, who are in the program. Although this writer sees his colleague as more demanding than his boss and hears this in her voice, his boss said something, she had said before, which was strongly emphasized. Although the emphasis was directed at his colleague, who is not as familiar with the mental health symptoms as this writer, what his boss said made this writer  think. The discussion was about one particularly manipulative female parolee, who, according to his boss, who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), has borderline personality disorder. The way in which she emphasized that people with such diagnosis beyond their teen age years “are never able to change” struck this writer, who, based on his knowledge about how behavior is maintained by environmental variables, has a more positive, but also a more realistic outlook. If this client is indeed “always going to do what she wants to do” this writer wonders: what then is the purpose and legitimacy of our program?

It is clear to this writer that he is not going to have any discussion with his boss about this matter, because their difference of opinion, once clearly expressed, is bound to create a problem. This writer will continue to treat this particular client in the same way as he treats everyone else, which is, that change and improvement is possible for everyone. Certainly, it makes no sense to get into an argument with one’s boss about this, because she doesn’t have the knowledge in which this writer’s way of working is grounded. It is not this writer’s role in his job to educate her or to contradict her. When this writer can quietly think this to himself he feels a peace of mind, which he wasn’t having as long as he felt that he had to say what he thought. It is such a relief to be able to keep his thoughts to himself and to avoid trouble. This writer’s behavior is under control of his knowledge about behaviorology.