January 9, 2015

January 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

This author ran into two people who had recently participated in his seminar. They produced Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) right away and it was wonderful to hear them speak about it with clarity and interest. One of them asked why we don’t usually have SVB and have what this author calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)? This author answered that although many things can be said about how we communicate, it makes sense to focus on just these two ways. During SVB we are in touch with each other and ourselves, but during NVB we are neither in touch with each other nor with ourselves. The person acknowledged this and rephrased his question and asked why he was able to understand SVB while others aren’t? This author answered that he and other people have different behavioral histories. He emphasized that although he is the one who teaches SVB, others have responded to him by reinforcing him. 


Their response to what he teaches is based on their past. Certainly not everyone responds to this writer like these two men. However, it is important to recognize that also this writer, although he is the originator of SVB, has learned all he knows from other people whom he has met in his life. And, allthough nobody has ever taught him about SVB as such, others have taught him the behavioral components which make up SVB. Interestingly, the person asked a question about his Catholic religion. The experience of SVB, to him, expresses what he considers to be his belief in God. 

It is perhaps no coincidence that this author was also raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. The person then stated that Catholicism is just another language and this author agreed that Catholicism, like any other religion, is determined by how we behave verbally. What this author refers to as SVB often evokes all sorts of spiritual connotations, but the point of this writing is to clarify that we are talking about positive emotional experiences, which are important to us, because they are reinforcing. SVB is essential because it allows us to decouple our actual experience from the mystical explanations which we usually give to it. By having an explanation of SVB, by recognizing what we considered to be our belief as a way of behaving verbally, we are better capable of cherishing and sharing the experience by how we talk. 

This goes for any system of thought, any political, ideological, philosophical or cultural view. When we talk about our individual experiences, we are behaving verbally, but we are often not recognizing the extent to which we fail to express verbally what we experience in our body, non-verbally. We often think that we are verbal while in fact we are nonverbal. What this writer calls verbal fixation makes us lose touch with our non-verbal/body/experience/reality. NVB is our disembodied communication. Attention for our sound while we speak brings us to SVB in which we acknowledge the commonalities of our non-verbal experiences, which previously had been given false explanations and couldn’t bring us to the fact that our different beliefs have been ways in which our words were separating us from our nonverbal environment. 

In SVB our words will deepen our connection with our environment, our body. The other person also made a profound comment. He articulated his need to be in an environment in which he could practice SVB. This may seem like a simple statement, but it has many implications. The most easily overlooked implication is that SVB can only occur if the contingency to make it happen is available. Without the necessary ingredients to make it happen, SVB cannot happen. These ingredients, however, are environmental stimuli, which occur inside the skin and outside of the skin of all the communicators involved. 

The environmental variables that stimulate and maintain SVB are produced by the combined stimulation from internal and external stimuli. Such stimuli are also known as endo-stimuli and ecto-stimuli, respectively. What is more, the function of endo-stimili can be altered by ecto-stimuli and also the function of ecto-stimuli can also be altered by endo-stimuli. In other words, SVB is made possible by the ongoing interaction between a verbally-behaving organism’s endo – and ecto – environment. Although there is private, endo-speech, with which an individual covertly talks with him or herself about the non-verbal ecto-environment, this sub-vocal self-talk is only as good as the overt ecto-speech the person has experienced. Given the fact that SVB at best has only occurred in an occasional, irregular manner, most endo-speech reflects NVB, that is, it is insensitive to the ecto-stimuli, which are occurring in our current environment. Freud used to call these defense mechanisms. 

The only way to reverse this pathological process is for the verbalizer to become his or her own mediator. Speakers must listen to themselves while they speak. To be in an environment in which one can practice SVB is a tricky thing because one cannot practice it and one doesn’t need to practice SVB. To the contrary, once one knows what the environment must be like in order to have SVB, one finds, one is having SVB. If, however, the necessary endo – and ecto – stimuli for SVB are absent, SVB cannot and will not occur, and, unless one leaves this contingency, one will not engage in SVB. 

The person who expressed the wish to be in the environment in which he could practice SVB, instantly created this environment, because he met this writer, who on previous occasions had taught him how to create and maintain this environment. Thus, the person was demonstrating to this writer how capable he had become. He instantly recognized their meeting reinforced his SVB and expressed his wish to continue with it forever. This evoked a burst of laughter and they both embraced each other. The person thanked this writer for teaching him and this writer thanked him for allowing him to teach. 

As this writer is writing about this event, he notices how his body responds. A subtle energy rises up from the bottom of his spine to his skull and he experiences a sense of thankfulness. It is SVB that stimulates this writer to write these words. He thinks of the many people with whom he has shared his ideas and feels so fortunate to have found this new way of talking. This one person, who asked him to teach, makes this writer incredibly happy. It makes all the rejection by those who don’t want to have anything to do with him irrelevant. Today is a day of joy, celebration, relief and attainment.