December 5, 2014

December 5, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

One of the wonderful possibilities of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is that the verbalizer can describe the sensations which he or she is feeling in his or her body. This enables the verbalizer to link his or her own sound to the physiological arousal level that he or she feels at any given moment in his or her body. Even negative feelings can be described in a positive manner; we can talk about Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in a SVB-fashion. This is for most people a completely new experience, an experience which they had wanted to have, but which, for the most part, they have never had and, based on their previous experiences, never thought they could have. In effect, sensations and tensions felt in the body, when described in a conscious, accurate manner, decrease by talking about it.

During SVB, the verbalizer’s ability to talk about his or her physiological events, which play a big role in a person's private speech, has a soothing and regulating effect, which is reinforced by those who listen. Since this regulating effect comes about due to the verbalizer’s improved skill in describing what used to be his or her covert behavior and since the mediator’s validating role only pertains to the public speech of the verbalizer, many covert speech issues are then expressed publicly, because they can. NVB therefore signifies the verbalizer’s inability to talk about his or her negative physiological experiences, that is, his or her private speech. It is due to the behavioral history of the verbalizer, in which verbal expression of  nonverbal, negative, covert events were punished, that the skill to publicly express these events verbally could never fully develop. 

Verbal expression of negative physiological experiences is often a taboo because it shows weakness. However, talking about the fact that we are hurting or experiencing discomfort in SVB is different from talking about it in a NVB. In the former, our pain is alleviated, but in the latter, it is increased. NVB is the spoken communication which prevents us from talking about our negative experiences. 

The doctor’s question whether the stomach ache is “a sharp, stabbing or throbbing pain?” (Carr, 2011) can’t be answered by a two-year old, someone who hasn’t learned these words. A child does not yet have the behavioral history to make these distinctions. Only when these covert experiences were repeatedly labelled as such, will someone be capable of describing them. Although we usually acquire words to describe acute physiological pain, we learn less words and descriptions that capture our so-called psychological pain, when we experience coercion, rejection, aggression and loss.

During SVB, we acquire labels to describe subjective phenomenological experiences. The fact that we have haven’t acquired these labels doesn’t mean we don’t have these interoceptive experiences or that we don’t need to describe them. The fact that we haven’t gotten refined enough in our spoken communication to be able to refer to our internal states, makes us have NVB, by default. Even if we don’t have suitable labels to describe what we experience inside our body, in SVB we will find new ways of addressing what is going on, because we are not under any pressure to use specific words. 

In SVB we are more interested in how we sound, and, consequently, it is much easier to stay with, to accept, to feel, to acknowledge and to access our subjective experience. In NVB, by contrast, our words take us away from our experience. Another way of saying this is that SVB is our embodied communication, while NVB is disembodied communication. In NVB, we lose touch with our body. 

The words we use to describe the negative ways (NVB) in which others interact with us can only be those, which are already used by the members of our verbal community. We may occasionally invent a phrase, but, for the most part, we only speak the language with which we have a behavioral history. Although this author came up with the label Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) these words already existed and he only put them together to address a specific matter which has not yet been properly addressed. In SVB, it is not so much what we are saying, but how we say it, which makes what we are saying more meaningful. In NVB, by contrast, there is a fixation on what we are saying. Consequently, in NVB there is a disconnect between the verbal and the nonverbal, between what we say and what we do. 

The saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ emphasizes actions, because words hide the fact that our actions are lacking. However, it is only in NVB that, due to words, actions are lacking, because it is only in NVB that words become a smoke screen which cover up the reality. In SVB, words make and keep us conscious and stimulate us into action. Moreover, in SVB, words themselves are actions, because SVB changes our reality as we speak. We are so bad at communicating negative emotions because the contingencies for SVB are mostly nonexistent. However, when SVB contingencies are made available, SVB will occur, effortlessly and convincingly. If we would only spend more time analyzing how we speak, it would be self-evident that SVB is much better than NVB. In SVB our private speech is included, but in NVB, our NVB private speech is excluded from our public speech.