Friday, January 19, 2018

January 7, 2018

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading, studying, thinking and talking about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It must have occurred to you that the thoughts and feelings you have articulated and listened to are no longer the same as the thoughts and feelings which remained unexpressed. In SVB, you will not only express your private speech, but you also listen to the sound of it.

In NVB our private speech is not even allowed to be expressed in public speech. We inevitably get stuck with NVB private speech as NVB speakers endlessly force and accuse each other that we are causing our own behavior. This fallacy has been around for a long time. However, we are neither causing our SVB nor our NVB and so, we are also neither causing our SVB private speech nor our NVB private speech. It is impossible to be stuck with SVB private speech. To the extent we have been involved in SVB, it will have a regulating affect even if we are with NVB speakers.

Speaking and listening should be considered together in the same as breathing out and breathing in. If we talk, we do so on an outgoing breath and if we listen, we become focused on ingoing breath to the point that we become still and that our breathing is deep and calm. It makes no sense to think of speaking and listening behaviors as separate. It is only due to our repeated involvement in NVB that we keep thinking of them as separate. Although we may think of them as separate, they are not separate and thinking of them as separate maintains many of our problems.

Speaking only makes sense to the extent that we are listening and listening only makes sense to the extent that we are speaking. However, in NVB the speaker prevents the listener from speaking or forces him or her to speak in a manner that is determined by him or by her. Thus, in NVB the speaker and the listener are separated by their specific place in the dominance hierarchy. NVB is speech which occurs between those who view themselves and others as superior or inferior.

Unlike NVB speakers, who try to dominate and outdo each other and struggle to get each other’s attention, SVB speakers take turns with their listeners, who will also then speak as SVB speakers. In other words, NVB speakers continuously elicit NVB speech, while SVB speakers only evoke SVB speech. Stated differently, NVB always speakers trigger respondent or reflexive behavior in the listener, who will then speak as a NVB speaker, but only SVB speakers can emancipate their listeners into becoming SVB speakers like themselves.

The SVB speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, that is, he or she tracks how he or she is affected by his or her own sound and this allows him or her to monitor how he or she affects the listener. The SVB speaker accurately discriminates when he or she or others produce NVB or SVB and is capable of tracing how the occurrence of one or the other is a function of variables in the environment. Rather than making SVB happen, the SVB speaker knows about the environment in which SVB can and will happen, but he or she also recognizes without any drama the environment in which only NVB can and will happen.

I know how to arrange environments in which SVB can and will happen. What I know can also be known by you. To learn it, you must verify what I write. I urge you to spend time by yourself talking out loud and listening to the sound of your thoughts and your feelings. By creating the environment in which you can safely and calmly express your own private speech in public speech (what you say to yourself can potentially be heard by others), you will become familiar with your ability to have SVB. As you read this text and you use these words to listen to your own sound, you will find it very easy, effortless and enjoyable.

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