August 14, 2016

August 14, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my sixteenth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). I appreciate Day’s commitment to accurate descriptions of environmental variables that cause behavioral change. Only he could write “To precisely the same extend as one is interested in manipulation he becomes concerned with ways in which the environment is related to behavior.”

I am interested in the manipulation which causes the increase of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and the decrease and ultimately the extinction of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). I came to know about the SVB/NVB distinction as I was frustrated and hurt about my inability to control the behavior of others, yet I kept feeling controlled by their behavior. 

After endlessly blaming and trying to improve myself I found out about the fact that I wasn’t causing my own behavior, but that my behavior was a function of the environment, that is, of people I was with. 

As long as I still thought I was the problem, my behavior didn’t and couldn’t improve as I continued to think it was caused by me, but once I became informed about radical behaviorism, it became clear what I had always known, but was never able to put forth with conviction, was true: environmental variables, that is, other people, cause my behavior. 

Those who dare to say that others are actually causing their behavior are immediately punished. It is no coincidence that I have a long history with being rejected. I have been rejected so often that I became very interested in why it kept on happening. I am no longer concerned with myself, but with my environment.  I find myself in environments in which I can function optimally as I take note of it. 

I totally agree with Day, who writes “However, the radical behaviorist is interested in manipulation not only for its immediate effect upon the behavior he is attempting to control, but also because he wants the manipulation to have some effect upon his own behavior as a scientist.”

Only in recent times the manipulation involved in my teaching of SVB has begun to have a stabilizing effect on me. The positive effects of teaching SVB have made me investigate it and find out more about it. 

Only since I have been teaching classes as a psychology instructor, I have been working with groups of students for the duration of a whole semester, for eighteen weeks. In other words, I was able to shape the behavior of all my students as they were repeatedly available to me. 

As an instructor, I have eighteen week to instruct my students. The effects of my teaching are proportionate to the amount of times I am able to interact with them and that they can engage in SVB together. 

Also in my current work as a therapist, I have a steady flow of clients most of whom I see for a similar amount of time. Unlike in the past, in which I was trying to teach about SVB by organizing seminars and individual sessions, I currently need not make any effort to get clients.

Almost all my clients make significant progress; they learn and they recover and they enjoy working with me. They stay in class and in treatment as they are very satisfied with my influence on them. 

Another reason why I have only recently began to be effected by SVB, is that I have eight couples in my caseload. Each couple is benefitted and this also affects me in ways in which I was previously not affected. 

I appreciate the consistent exposure to appetitive or positive vocal stimuli which is having its stabilizing effect on me.  “The extent to which he is able to manipulate behavior successfully is perhaps the most important variable that acts to shape his own research activities.” 

As my ability to successfully manipulate the behavior of my clients and my students has substantially increased in recent times, my research activities have focused on reading and responding to this paper by Day. 

As the fall semester is about to start, it appears to me my work will have reached another level. I will be teaching three classes and seeing twenty seven clients a week as I have acquired the skill to handle it.