May 30, 2014

May 30, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer is listening to the beautiful music of Vivaldi. He hears violins and a human voice, which sings together with these violins. Together they create a miraculous sound. This music is so dear to this writer that listening to it makes him cry. He sits with his laptop on his knees and he feels grateful for being able to enjoy the gift that has been given to him, which in the past so often has made him feel lonely and rejected. His ability to appreciate art and beauty is so vast that he is feeling more emotions than most people do. 

The music is sung by only just one person. The author hears in this himself as well as each human being individually. No matter whether we come from cultural back grounds which are in favor of individualism or collectivism, each human being is an entity which is endowed with experiences to which only he or she individually has access. We are all in some way trying to find out how our private experiences are related to mankind’s collective experience. 

Now the author of this writing is listening to a heavenly choir that sings with one voice. Many layers weave into a majestic fabric together with many string instruments. The author imagines that the pain and the suffering of the individual which was listened to is now commented on. It is as if the choir laments “That’s how it is; we are alone with ourselves, but we go through the same experience.” The instrumental part that follows echoes ancient voices. 

May 29, 2014

May 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writing is under discriminative control of Italian Baroque music. The reader can’t hear this music, but this writer can hear it and this will make him write words, which sound like trumpets and violins. Moreover, an entire choir will sing these words and makes the reader think about texts which are sung.  The victorious sounds of this music sets the stage for events to occur which couldn’t happen in any other way. Many of these beautiful sounds are never listened to in our current environment. They need to be reintroduced or they will be lost if they are no longer made. They are only made if they can be made. What made people make these wonderful sounds? What makes us produce the horrible sounds we produce today? Certainly, different environments led to very different sounds and if we would know how to create these environments, we would again become capable of producing and enjoying beautiful sounds. 

During Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in which the speaker listens to him or to herself while he or she speaks, an unusual phenomenon happens because it can happen: the human organism is experienced as one unity, which means, one is simultaneously the speaker and the listener.In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the speaker isn’t listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. Consequently, turn-taking is absent in NVB, because only the speaker is allowed to be and to remain the speaker, while another person than the speaker is only allowed to be and to remain the listener. 

Another way of explaining the aforementioned is that NVB is always uni-directional, while SVB is always bi-directional. In SVB there is a reciprocal relationship between the speaker and the listener, whereas in NVB the speaker and the listener are not connecting with each other. Although the speaker who produces NVB always produces NVB because he was, is or continues to be reinforced for his or her NVB, the disconnect between the speaker and the listener in NVB is always caused by the speaker and not by the listener. Speakers cause SVB or NVB and listeners reinforce one or the other.

Speakers who don’t listen to themselves while they speak prevent the listener from understanding what they are saying in ways which haven’t really been identified because we are so used to and conditioned by NVB. Once the distinction is made between SVB and NVB we get clear on what we were missing.Speakers who don’t listen to themselves while they speak always produce a tone of voice which signifies negative emotions. 

During the seminars this writer regularly facilitates it becomes clear that the participants are seemingly deaf to the sound of their own well-being. We listen to our stress, anxiety, fear and anger, but not to our peacefulness.Individuals begin to listen to themselves while they speak, because they are stimulated to do so by this author. Once this happens, they become, even if it is only for a few moments, capable of hearing the sound of their well-being. In moments of SVB speakers produce an enjoyable sound and others can hear it too.  

During NVB we don't express our well-being. Some got more love and attention than others and those who did accrued due to this behavioral history more SVB components than others. Those of us who were taught to not only to listen to others, but who were also reinforced for listening to themselves, they received more love and attention than those who were only reinforced for listening to others, but who were prevented from listening to themselves. They grew up in a way which conditioned them to coerce others to listen to them.

However, it must be made clear, that those who presumably received more love and attention, will only be able to produce SVB if they focus their attention on the distinction between SVB and NVB. They too depend on someone who knows this distinction to stimulate them to produce SVB. The mere fact that those who received more love and attention were able to gather more components that make SVB possible than those who didn’t receive as much love and attention, doesn’t make them produce it. SVB is only produced if the environment (the author) stimulates us do so. 

The instruction given by this author, to listen to one self while one speaks, is as necessary for those who already gathered some SVB components, who therefore have an easier time understanding what SVB is, as for those for whom these components need to be build up from scratch.The process occurring in this author’s seminars in which these components are discriminated, understood and verified, creates an acknowledgment among the participants that our behaviors are response products of the environments that we have lived in, in which listening to ourselves while we speak was never really taught by anyone.

 

Just as there are behavioral cusps that determine our individual development, there are behavioral cusps that have the potential to unite the human race. Due to scientific findings new behaviors are shaped and old behaviors are extinguished. SVB is a global cusp with immense power. A speaker is only a conscious speaker if this speaker is also a listener while he or she speaks. Listening before one speaks or after one has spoken is often mistaken for listening while one speaks. When one listens while one speaks one is a conscious communicator, because the production and the observation or, rather, the listening, occur here and now.

The opposite is also true. The listener is only truly a listener if he or she speaks. We don’t listen, because we don’t speak or, rather, we can’t listen, because we are not allowed to speak by those who coerce us into a way of communicating which this author calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).The aim of this author is to point out that NVB, in which neither the speaker is really a speaker nor the listener is really a listener, should no longer be considered as communication. NVB is the language of codependence in which the enabler is enabled and in which negativity and dysfunctionality is reinforced.  

NVB is not communication, because it is about domination and being dominated, coercion and being coerced, manipulation and being manipulated, oppression and being oppressed, sales and being sold, abuse and being abused. SVB is communication because the speaker and the listener can be one because of the absence of aversive stimulation.SVB is the language of mental health and NVB is the language of psychopathology. We don't  cause our own actions, but we cause each other’s actions, because we are each other’s environment. In NVB, we are unaccountable to how we influence each other, because we were made to believe that we cause our own actions. 

In SVB we are all accountable because we can and we want to be accountable, but in NVB we are all unaccountable, because we can’t be accountable. There is nothing to hold anyone accountable with, because there is no confrontation or communication going on in NVB.  SVB is scientific communication, but NVB is unscientific communication. Scientific communication allows for objectivity as well as subjectivity, whereas unscientific communication excludes subjectivity in the name of objectivity.  

Another way of saying this is that private speech is tossed out of public speech in NVB, but in SVB our private speech is included in our public speech. Private speech is a function of public speech, but in our NVB public speech is wrongly considered to be a function of our private speech! NVB public speech causes NVB private speech and SVB public speech causes SVB private speech. The only way to solve NVB private speech is by engaging more often in SVB public speech. Nothing can or needs to be done about NVB private speech.

NVB private speech always signifies a lack of SVB public speech. It is also NVB public speech which makes us believe that NVB private speech causes NVB public speech. NVB public speech is caused by the absence of the contingencies which make SVB public speech possible. NVB public speech resembles a state of deprivation from which we want to escape in any way possible. Since contingencies for SVB are not present when contingencies for NVB are present, we attempt to escape from NVB by producing more NVB, both publicly as well as privately. 

The only way in which we can escape from the onslaught of NVB and eventually can learn to avoid it, is by recognizing it for what it is and how it comes to about. Discrimination between SVB and NVB allows us to continue with SVB private speech in the face of NVB public speech. This ability,  however, is only as good as the extent to which we were exposed to and engaged in ongoing SVB public speech. Since nobody, not even this writer, has had such exposure, we struggle to achieve and maintain something that presumably resembles SVB, but which is NVB.

Although he knows how to create the environment that makes SVB possible, this writer is often not in the position to make the necessary changes and doesn’t experience SVB on an ongoing basis either. However, since he regularly organizes seminars, he has a sense of what it is like.The reinforcing effects of what SVB on an ongoing basis can be like has been an inspiration which has determined this writer’s behavior for at least the last thirty  years. The behavioral momentum of the SVB of this author has certainly increased and is likely to continue to increase even more. 

This writer is not, as most people in his seminars do and as he himself did in the past, trying to have SVB! His knowledge of the contingencies of reinforcement is such that he knows that it will happen when it can happen. The increase of his rate of SVB is no longer anything special, but something that is familiar to him. From his work with students and individuals who came to his seminars this writer has derived confidence that SVB can be recognized by anyone who can talk. SVB and NVB are universal categories of verbal behavior which can be easily pointed out to those who are not  familiar with it. This writer believes it is not productive to think of them in terms of good or bad. It is more helpful to think of SVB and NVB as two languages that are learned under different circumstances at different locations. 

May 28, 2014

May 28, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader,

It is in the middle of the night and this writer woke up to write these words. Tomorrow the big tree in the backyard will be taken down. It is going to be a big change. Another big change is going to be that this writer found a better job and is about to be hired. He heard it yesterday evening. While writing these words, this writer is listening to music by Antonio Vivaldi. The melody of the music is beautiful. He looks at the letters as they appear in front of him on the screen. It is magic. There is nothing and suddenly there are these  letters which make up these words and sentences. It is incredible this happens by moving his fingers over his keyboard. He is not in a hurry and patiently waits for the letters to tell him which words to write.

This focus on letters never occurred before. Normally his attention goes to words, or rather, to sentences which contain words. In this unusual writing, however, he looks at how every single letter comes out of now where. The stream of letters momentarily stops and then it continues again. How is this possible? Also, he edits this stream of letters and he prunes and aims it. At what are these letters directed? A question appears which is metaphorical, because there is no stream of letters. The stream of letters is just a matter of speaking, or rather, a matter of writing. However, once a metaphor like this has been introduced many thoughts are said to come to mind, for instance, that editing happens at the level of words rather than at the level of letters. Furthermore, there is attention away from the letters and the words towards the sentences. This is where the idea of aiming this stream of letters comes in. These letters are definitely words, which in these sentences have to go somewhere or it wouldn’t make any sense. This writer is not sitting here typing letters; he is saying something to himself and to the possible reader. 

It is pleasing to recognize that the production and the observation of these letters cause meaning, which is enhanced by this writing. There is a sense of discovery about where this is going. The question as such doesn’t arise, but seems to have become a context in which this writing occurs. Due to these words a space has opened itself in which this writer roams. It was never before clear that this is what actually occurs. This can occur when he writes. A space is created to express and observe what he expresses. In effect, due to his observation of his own expression, he is able to respond to it. He wouldn’t be able to do that without this space. His response to his own words is a joyful expression of unity between the writer and his writing.This writer has been saying all along that reading while one writes is similar to listening while one speaks. However, he maintains that the former only makes sense in the context of the latter. One can only come to reading while one writes by listening while one speaks. This is how it can be discovered. 

May 27, 2014

May 27, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer feels deeply rested and satisfied. The cat is meowing, far away the traffic can be heard and it is a pleasant and cool morning. This writer can take it easy this morning because he only needs to be at his work at eleven. He has some time to think and write. Because things are so good, he decided to find a new letter type. He went down the list and noted that he had never written with the letter type called “Vivaldi.” Since Vivaldi is one of his favorite composers, he chose this letter to write today’s entry in his journal. With this new letter he could only write in cursive, but he liked the look of it: elegant and smooth as Vivaldi’s music. 

There is something Baroque about this letter type, which this writer greatly appreciates. This letter type stands for order and beauty. This writer will find out what he is going to write while he listens to music of Vivaldi. This is in itself such an enjoyable exercise. He did not have this idea before, but now he wants to experiment more often with writing while listening to music. 

This writer was reading about “behavioral cusps", new experiences which make new learning possible. When this writer discovered how his writing was affected by the type of letter he chose to write with, he unexpectedly embarked on a process of exploration and discovery, which still continues in this writing. This one discovery led to many others. Before this writer knew about the influence of letter types on his writing, he had no idea what he was missing. Only after he discovered that different letter types facilitate new writings, this writer realized what a treasure he had found. With the “Vivaldi” letter type he found that both tone and the content was equally affected, which had not been the case with the other letter types. 

This discovery confirmed what he had previously found. He discovered Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by listening to himself while he speaks. Paying attention to the sound of his voice, while he speaks, led to an entirely different, improved way of communicating. As he taught it to others, it became clear that it was equally true for everyone who experimented with it.  

Although this writer has done quite some writing, he hasn’t done any writing while listening to music. Listening to music of Vivaldi, which is music of his liking, is like listening to the sound of his own voice which he only makes when he is at ease and calm. The author never imagined that this would be possible, but while writing these words he is convinced that this is the case.

Besides,, of course, being determined by his own behavioral history, this writing is also under joint control of the visual and auditory stimuli of the Vivaldi letter type. The beautiful compositions this author hears while he is writing these words are reflected in the clarity of the concepts that he explains.

May 26, 2014

May 26, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer is glad once the family members, who came to visit him and his wife, have left again. Although it was nice to see each other, it soon became clear how different lives  they live and how we don’t have a whole lot to talk about with each other. This led to more eating, more TV and more beers, which didn’t improve this author’s mood and made him feel grouchy and negative. It is nice to know they leave soon.

Only a few people showed up for yesterday’s seminar. However, the few who showed up were doing well and demonstrated that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) doesn’t depend on the approval of a large crowd. One person left the seminar minutes after it started. She stated that she already knew SVB because she had been to classes about Non Violent Communication (NVC). However, it was clear that she was very uptight and unwilling to consider anything new. One participant, who was familiar with NVC, explained the great difference between SVB and NVC. In NVC, which this writer would consider Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the listener is making stringent attempts to listen to the speaker, supposedly in order to better understand him or her. The effort involved in NVC leaves the listener exasperated, because it is based on a predetermined way of communicating. The participant explained the contrast with SVB in which one doesn't feel drained, but energized, because there is effortless communication and spontaneity. Also, she remarked that the lady who left so quickly was convinced she was right and that whatever others are saying was wrong. She said that she didn’t want to listen to or talk about anything she already knew.

It was a relief when she was gone and because this writer avoided getting into any discussion with her, the elephant left the room, all by herself.  It was funny that after she left the atmosphere  immediately cleared up. Participants already felt judged, rejected and humiliated by her. Her departure was the best part of her participation and we all agreed about that. When my in laws have left, my wife and I will be happy, because we can again experience what we together maintain.