June 13, 2014

June 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer wants to write today about the meaning of words and phrases. Much has been said about the meaning of language, but little has been said about how it is possible that words can sometimes be meaningful and other times totally meaningless. This writer refers to how words are used, rather than to what is being said. In other words, how do we actually behave while we speak? Words don’t behave in language, but we, as whole organisms, do.

This writer is capable of saying complicated things with simple words. The reason he is not very fond of difficult words, is because it leads to verbal and conceptual clutter. What this means is that the words that are used become more important than what is being talked about. Not only does it become more difficult to understand what someone is saying or writing, language gets in the way of what is being observed and often prevents us from being in touch with ourselves and each other. This situation is called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It is called that way because wordy speakers just sound horrible. 

How does language get in the way of what is being observed? Are words things, like a blindfold, which we can put over our eyes, so that we don’t see? Words are not like that. We can imagine seeing things in the same way that we just imagined a blindfold which is preventing us from seeing. How do words accomplish this? Talking, in this case writing, about a blindfold is enough to make us see the blindfold. That is, writing can only make us see the blindfold if we have previously been introduced to a blindfold and are already familiar with it. 

A child, who is not yet familiar with a blindfold, would not be capable of imagining what it is, if it hadn’t learned that word. If we show the child a blindfold, he or she has no word for it, but we give him or her that word and then we praise the child if it says ‘blindfold’ when we show it a blindfold. So after we have reinforced the child for saying ‘blindfold’ in the presence of a blindfold, the child is capable of saying blindfold on its own. Children like to play hide and seek and in this process they discover there are all kinds of things to hide behind: a tree, a bush, a wall, a car. This example is hopefully making clear to the reader that the meaning of the word is always a behavior. 

What this writer calls Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is teaching the reader a new language which he or she didn’t know. There was no way for the reader to be able to identify NVB, the communication in which people continue to have problems, but can neither address nor solve them. The reader didn’t know about SVB, the term which designates the communication which addresses and solves problems. The reader didn’t know that what we call a problem is not a thing, but a behavior. 

We usually don’t think of our use of words as behavior, but if one investigates the circumstances in which one finds oneself using particular words, one begins to get a sense that one’s language, just like walking or hiding behind a tree, is indeed a verbal behavior which gets even more subtle as one looks at the use of letters that make up one’s words. Refinement of one’s language is needed if one wants to be able to express and understand subtleties of one's other behavior. Nuances can’t be part of one’s repertoire as long as one’s verbal behavior is expressed in a harsh and forceful manner. NVB must be stopped before SVB can reveal itself. 

When we feel good, we are not trying to feel good, we feel good. Those who are trying to feel good, are not feeling good, that is why they are trying to feel good. When we feel safe, we are not trying to feel safe. Those who are trying to feel safe don’t feel safe. When we understand, we are not trying to understand. Those who are trying to understand don’t understand. They can’t understand as long as they are trying to understand. When we understand, we are not trying to understand. To understand, we must stop trying to understand.  The effort involved in trying to understand is a waste of time. Either we understand or we don’t understand. We must learn to acknowledge when we don’t understand.

June 12, 2014

June 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It is detrimental to say whatever comes to your mind. When a person does this, it indicates that his or her listening is less developed than his or her speaking. If a person shoots first and asks questions later, he or she is obviously not very concerned about how he or she is received. However, what is easily missed about such a person is that he or she doesn’t and can’t receive him or herself. 

The opposite of the afore-mentioned is someone who always thinks first and only then speaks. Supposedly, such a person is more thoughtful and more capable of accurately predicting the consequences of what he or she is saying. However, there are problems involved with that as well. Someone who constantly edits what he or she says does only one of two things: either he or she comments with his or her private speech on his or her public speech or, he or she comments with his or her public speech on his or her private speech. In the former, what this person says publicly is a function of what he or she says to him or herself privately. The private speech is out of sight and is carefully camouflaged to hide his or her self-serving motives. When, by contrast, before one speaks, a person’s public speech comments on his or her private speech, a different way of talking ensues. In the former, we become more anti-social and aggressive, while in the latter, we become more social and peaceful.  Only when private speech is a function of public speech will private speech make us more considerate. 

Nevertheless, the person who blurts out whatever comes to their mind is still more social than someone whose public speech is function of their private speech. The fact that their ability to recognize how they are perceived by others is impaired and prevents them from accurately perceiving themselves, makes them, in the worst case scenario, an annoying nuisance, but they are mostly hurting themselves.  

The person who is perceived by others as most disturbing, who says things and only later perhaps realizes what he or she has gotten him or herself into, gets socially rejected. This causes him or her to have negative private speech, which in turn comes out again as public speech. It is important to consider that this so-called extrovert, manic loud-mouth, has private speech, which is a function of public speech and can be corrected by public speech, but the so-called introvert,  cold-blooded, calculated anti-social, is more pathological, because his or her public speech appears to be a function of his or her private speech. Moreover, treatment of such a person with public speech is less effective, because it will be more difficult to focus on the real issue: the uneven development of speaking and listening. When speaking is more developed than listening this changes the direction of the communication. 

With a relative even development of speaking and listening, speaking will be a function of listening. In other words, it makes no sense to say something if nobody is listening. However, the more speaking is forced on us and the more listening is lacking, the less speaking will be a function of listening, and the more listening will be a function of speaking. This change of direction always involves a different kind of speaking and listening that is: coercive speaking and forced listening. When our private speech is a function of public speech this causes bi-directional interaction, but when public speech is a function of private speech, this creates uni-directional, my-way-or-the-highway speech or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which shouldn’t even be considered communication.  

Furthermore, when listening is more developed than speaking, a lopsidedness occurs which decreases speech altogether. There is less talk with those who listen more than they speak. This may lead to depression or schizophrenia. The afore-mentioned uni-directional speech pattern is compounded by the fact that private speech is a function of public speech. Only public speech can change our private speech.  Most treatment is erroneously aimed at altering a person’s private speech.  

June 11, 2014

June 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This author reads papers that were written by other behaviorists almost every day. He isn’t interested himself in writing such a paper, because, while reading the papers of others, he realizes again and again how insignificant their writings are. He knows that he is one of the very few people who is reading these papers and that the majority of people don’t know and will never know anything about them. His interest in science is his connection to life itself,  but there are few scientists who have been willing to talk with him about his contribution. 

The scientific discovery of this writer pertains to spoken communication. It is possible to write about it, but it makes much more sense to talk about it.  This is why every month this writer facilitates a free seminar. He does what he can to let people know about it, but not that many people come to his seminars, even though they are always successful and worthwhile events. His work has developed over the years and ever since he found out that he is a behaviorist, he has been studying behaviorism. As a consequence, his writings have improved.

This writer often writes about speaking, because there are just not that many people to speak with. Next to speaking writing is the best thing. In the past, his focus was so much on speaking that he didn’t care about writing. He often said things which got him in trouble, but he never regretted saying them. The fact that he had said it was more important to him than the negative consequences which followed. He had always felt that expressing himself was his health. Things have changed and now he no longer feels the urge to say it because he writes. 

Although writing is not the same as speaking, it helped to pave the way for this writer to stay out of trouble. His previous life was negatively affected by his inability to keep his mouth shut. Much to his dislike, this writer has often been characterized as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. The development of his writing has strengthened his private speech, which in the past was often expressed in his public speech. These days his private speech is only expressed in his public speech when the situation is in full support of it. 

While he grew up, his private speech was often expressed when nobody really wanted to hear about it. This improper behavior was nevertheless reinforced and it grew stronger through the years and it could have had much worse consequences than it did. He was often socially rejected for what he said, but since some people liked him for his ability to withstand the opinions of others, he never was able to see the mechanism at work. Ideally, a person’s private speech protects a person from what this writer repeatedly exposed himself to. 

This writing, in which this writer now elaborates on this process of being able to keep one’s thoughts and feelings to oneself, was not possible two years ago because this writer had not yet made the connection between his writing, his private speech and his public speech. If someone would have told him about this, he would have probably not believed him. This makes total sense in the context of this writing, in which he is telling it to himself. There are things we must say to ourselves, which others can’t help us with, because they are not us. 

Not too long ago this writer was sitting with a group of schizophrenics around a campfire. Everything seemed to normalize. Everybody knew that anyone who would come closer to the fire would get burned. The wind sometimes blew the smoke in different directions and the clients who happened to get smoke in their face would quickly remove their chairs, while laughing when the wind changed the direction of the smoke again and blew it in some else’s face. A perfect mechanism was at work in each of them as they instructed themselves to do exactly the right thing. Also, they were happy as children, while splashing around in the water of the lake and while they were canoeing, none of them suffered from mental health issues. They were in touch with the environment.  

June 10, 2014

June 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer just read some of his work to a couple of people he knows. They really liked it. This reinforces this writer to write and to feel more comfortable about his writing. As a consequence of reading the two people who heard it said wonderful things. They acknowledged the importance of a person’s ability to be able to have a private speech which is enhanced instead of diminished by public speech. While talking the three of us laughed a lot. We felt friendship. 

Although this writer has often experienced the beneficial effects of the writings of others, he has never given much attention to the possible positive effects of his own writing on others, because he was always so focused on speaking. It feels like an immense relief to this writer that he no longer so strongly feels the need to speak with others, because he is now beginning to talk through his writings. He has not known this feeling before and is only just beginning to explore it. Because it is so new it is very exciting and like breaking new ground.

There is a sense of success, which suddenly permeates each of these words. His previous writings were not yet part of the conversation with others, but these words are more meaningful, because they are read by a different reader. This writer is trying to figure out how this happened? Because his writing changed, his reading of his own writing changed as well. This writer who recently read about the independent development of speaking and listening behavior now realizes the same is true for writing and reading. Moreover, he recognizes, in the same way that his speaking behavior is more developed than his listening behavior, his writing behavior is also more developed than his reading behavior. This is indeed an incredible discovery which definitely needs more exploration. It is fascinating, because this writer has always been such a slow reader. As as child, this writer had problems and anxieties around reading and writing. 

In the same way that he had to slow down his speaking, to be able to listen to himself while he speaks, he also had to slow down in his writing, to become a better reader of his own writing. Another way of saying this is that his writing wasn’t able to improve due to his lack of reading his writing. Although he did on rare occasion let others read his writings, he never cared enough about his writings to let others read it, let alone publish it. For him speaking was more important than writing and, consequently, his writing never got much of his attention. 

It wasn’t until the connection was made between, on the one hand, the speaker and the listener, and, on the other hand, the writer and the reader, that this writer began to take note of his own writing. It seemed as if he had never read his own writing. This important component of the development of his verbal behavior had been virtually ignored. Although he had completed all his Ph.D. course work and had written many papers, he had never considered his writing as having any value. In the same way he once discovered that what he said was important and needed to be listened to, he now began to read what he had written. 

During a conversation with a colleague from China this author mentioned that what we are saying is a function of how we are saying it and that what we are writing is a function of how we are reading. If we are not listening to what we are saying, we are saying different things than when we are listening. When we are reading while we are writing, we are writing totally different things. A big difference between speaking and listening or writing and reading is that with the former the impact is direct, while with the latter, the reading of what was written can happen years or centuries afterwards. If what was written was about what was said, a special effect is created, because on the one hand, what was said still has this immediate response, but because it was written, this response is transported across time. It made this author want to read about how people talked in the Middle Ages. What were they actually saying to each other? How is it different from or similar to what we are saying now?

June 9, 2014

June 9, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Just before waking up this writer was dreaming about an observation that pertains to how we speak. He was dreaming about his own responses to how others speak. From this nonverbal approach he developed his theory of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is based on how speech is perceived by the listener. Much to his own amazement, he found that others perceive the speech of speakers in the same way as he did. It was a surprise because he had believed his way of perceiving speech was different from others. He was often punished for his way of perceiving the speech of others because he used to try to speak about it. 

Nowadays this writer has learned not to speak so readily anymore about how he perceives the speech of others. The changes which because of this can now occur have made his life a lot easier and more successful. While slipping out of his dream, this writer came up with a couple of possibilities, which he wrote down on a piece of paper. Various responses to how others speak are possible: 1) one can see the speaker, but not listen, nor speak; 2) one can see the speaker and listen, but not speak; 3) one can see the speaker and speak, but not listen; and 4) one can see the speaker and listen and speak. Also, one 5) cannot see the speaker and not listen, nor speak; 6) not see the speaker and listen, but not speak; 7) not see the speaker and speak, but not listen; and 8) not see the speaker and listen and speak. Furthermore, one can 9) see first and listen later; 10) listen first and see later. In addition, one can 11) have public speech first and private speech later; 12) private speech first and public speech later; 13) one can have public speech and limited or  no private speech; 14) private speech and limited or no public speech; 15) one can integrate private speech into public speech and 16) fail to integrate private speech into public speech.   

After the author summed up the above, it occurred to him that he didn’t mention whether any of these possibilities led to any understanding of the speaker or not. According to him, understanding pertains to each of these possibilities, but, of course, different understanding is involved with each possibility. These distinctions are not made here to elaborate on each of them separately, but to let the reader know that these responses exist and also effect understanding while reading. 

To treat any response as a lack of understanding is to add a value to the response which is arbitrary. Whether one understands or not is irrelevant as far as the nature of the response is concerned. The consequence of the response can only be distilled if we consider a bunch of these responses over time. What this writer is saying here is that no matter what anyone thinks about one’s own  response, the consequences can only be seen by observing many of such responses.  

Another observation is that, in response to the speaker, the speaking of the listener is of great importance. The response is going to be different depending on whether it is based on listening or seeing, listening and seeing, the absence of listening and seeing, the presence of private speech, the absence of private speech, the listener’s ability to bring private speech into public speech or the listener’s skill to keep private speech out of public speech. Another, option,  which only recently has begun to develop in the repertoire of this author, is the listener’s ability to avoid listening completely to what the speaker is saying and to respond only to what the listener is saying to himself privately. 

Of course, one can be wrong, but if one assesses one’s responses correctly, one figures out over time that distraction of those who distract can be both effective and necessary to protect oneself. Moreover, if the listener’s response can bring the speaker’s attention to his or her private speech, this decreases the tension for the listener. Furthermore, the listener’s response that causes a speaker’s expression of private speech confirms the listener’s private speech, but doesn’t require it to be expressed. This author slowly learns to express less of his private speech.