Language Enlightenment

Saturday, March 19, 2016

June 16, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader,

Most of us have more and better developed speaking behavior than listening behavior. This is why listening while we speak has such remarkable results. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is the spoken communication in which speakers listen to themselves while they speak. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) we speak more than that we listen or we listen more than that we speak. In NVB our speaking and listening behavior are separate. They can’t be joined because they have grown apart. In NVB speaking and listening behaviors grow further and further apart. In SVB they come back together and become synchronized. There is a way of speaking in which listening becomes more increased and speaking becomes decreased.

Unless one experiences SVB it is hard to believe that it is even possible, but it is necessary that we understand how it works, so that we can arrange for the circumstances that make it possible. When it can occur, it will occur and when it doesn’t occur, it can’t occur. The adjustments which need to be made are not in others, but in the individual speaker. Each communicator is both a speaker and a listener and each of us can only individually arrange for the joining of our speaking and listening behaviors. We cannot do this for each other. Our tendency to try to do this for others prevents us from noticing that we can and must do this for ourselves. However, we can set the right example for others.

Only when one has SVB by one self, one can discover what one cannot discover as long as one stays involved with others. Others are likely to distract us from listening to ourselves. Others want us to listen to them or in the presence of others we want them to listen to us. In either case, we are more likely to listen to ourselves while we speak when we are alone than when we are with others. This solitary self-talk can also be seen as a way of checking in with ourselves. What happens in this solitary process has often been described as meditation.

This writer introduces the reader to the possibility of conscious communication. SVB is the way of speaking in which we are conscious of ourselves and each other. NVB, by contrast, is our mechanical way of talking, in which we are on automatic pilot and unconscious of ourselves and each other. We are conscious or unconscious because of how we speak. Only when we are alone and talking out loud with ourselves, are we able to let go of the words and slowing down our speaking. Only when we are alone are we inclined to calmly experiment with the increase of listening and the decrease of speaking. In most spoken communication we are not allowing ourselves and each other to be alone. In NVB we can’t leave each other, but above all, ourselves alone. In SVB, we let ourselves be who we really are and we let others be who they really are.

Being who we really are indicates a return to our nonverbal selves. This return is necessary to align our verbal behavior with our nonverbal behavior, which is another way of saying that we are joining our speaking and listening behavior. In SVB, we are both verbal and nonverbal, but neither one distracts or disconnects from the other. In SVB, we become fully verbal, because we stay in touch with our nonverbal experience. In NVB, by contrast, we are either too verbal or we are too nonverbal. Mostly, in NVB, we are too verbal and those who can’t stand that gravitate towards becoming more nonverbal. Those who have problems with language are more nonverbal than those who cause them. The lack of language, diagnosed as autism, is inversely related to too much language, to too much overwhelming emotional language and too little calm, non-emotional language. Language problems are created and maintained by NVB and are solved by SVB.

As long as words, which we are supposed to learn at a young age, come to us as aversive stimuli, they will mainly enhance our nonverbal behaviors. The lack of relationship, neglect and being repeatedly coerced into listening, also sets the stage for multiple so-called mental illnesses.

June 15, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader,

Another important discovery was made. Yesterday, this writer had his last day on his part-time job as a mental health worker at the transitional group home for the mentally ill people. The clients were sad he was leaving and they were saying genuine things in praise of him. It was moving to experience what a beautiful relationship this writer had built with one each of them. This writer felt a sense of gratitude and satisfaction of work that had been well done. Also, some of his colleagues were thanking and respecting him. However, his boss was not there to see him off. She called to wish him luck with his new job.

The boss seemed to call because she had too. She immediately explained the reason for not being there: she had her foot in a caste, because during the recent camping trip, she had fallen over a log of wood near the campfire. This writer already heard her accusing him that she had fallen over a “log that wasn’t even supposed to be there.” Apparently, she had spoken about this with his colleagues, because they too mentioned to him about the log of wood that she had tripped over. It is ludicrous that this writer had anything to do with his boss’s unfortunate fall over this piece of wood. She had blamed him as she had done so often. This time it was more obvious, because he was leaving.

When this writer came home, he was reading the nice card that the clients had written for him. He was thinking about his boss’s absence and his colleague’s mention of the “log that wasn’t even supposed to be there.” For a moment, he felt negative about his inability to tell his boss what he really thinks of her, but it had been the correct decision not to talk with his temperamental boss. He had overcome a behavior which had been troubling him his entire life. This time, the public speech of his boss, but also the public speech of his colleagues, wasn’t able to elicit this writer’s private speech anymore.

The moment this writer realized that the Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) public speech of his boss and some of his colleagues had nothing to do with him, he no longer felt bad. It was his newly developed ability, to separate out public speech from private speech, which, at long last, allowed him to stay out of a discussion in which he would have tried in vain to defend himself or to change others. Said differently, his Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) private speech had protected him from the NVB public speech of others. This was the very first time that this writer felt benefited from his understanding and control over this process.

For a long time this writer was struggling with the feelings of frustration and resentment that arise in response to the punishing behaviors of others. To be clear, by punishment behaviorists mean the removal of positive reinforcement, such as verbal praise or a present or the presentation of an aversive stimulus, such as scolding or slapping. So, punishment is a deliberate procedure, which would decrease the frequency and intensity of a particular unwanted behavior, such as the acting out behavior of a child. Whenever someone attempted to change his behavior by humiliating him, by making him feel guilty or by intimidating him, this writer would get upset and would try to prevent others from doing this. He was, however, always unsuccessful in preventing others, but fell victim to his negative emotions, which were used by others as evidence that his behavior needed to be changed and that the punishment was justified and needed to be increased.

Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is the language of punishment and Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is the language of positive reinforcement. Although a positive short-term consequence of punishment is that behavior can almost instantly be decreased, the terrible negative consequences far outweigh this insignificant benefit, which blinds so many of us into implementing this procedure again and again. Whatever gain is obtained by punishment in the short-term goes to waste in the long-term. Healthy and happy relationships are based on positive reinforcement, but they will be undermined by punishment, which prevents their development.

June 14, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader,

Just because we can talk and read doesn’t mean that we will understand each other. To understand each other something more is needed. Of course, talking and reading are necessary and without them understanding is impossible, but the point being made here is that it is not enough. Perhaps the reader has heard about the ability to talk with him or herself? Perhaps the reader has talked with him or herself and has listened to him or herself? Perhaps the reader has written a journal and has written to him or herself and has read what he or she has written to him or herself? Perhaps, because of all of these behaviors, the reader is capable of noticing the big difference between speaking and writing?

It is unlikely that the aforementioned behaviors would develop as long as the speaker or the writer still believes and insists that he or she is always right, that he or she already understands, and therefore can’t understand that he or she in fact doesn’t understand. Such understanding is always a product of self-talk and self-listening or self-writing and self-reading. In other words, understanding of others is not possible if we don’t understand ourselves. We may talk with each other until we are blue, but as long as our private speech is not and cannot be part of our public speech, we don’t and we can’t understand each other.

Admitting that we don’t understand each other requires that we individually admit that we don’t understand ourselves. We may be willing to admit that we don’t understand each other, but we aren’t willing to admit that we don’t understand ourselves. Since we are used to a public speech from which our private speech is excluded, from which private speech is ignored and rejected, we don’t know we don’t understand each other because we don’t understand ourselves. If public speech teaches us that our private speech has no relevance, how then is our private speech able to inform us that we don’t even understand ourselves?

Let’s be clear. Even if we are willing to admit that we don’t understand each other, we are we still incapable of understanding and admitting that we are not even understanding ourselves. We are not focusing on self-understanding in our usual way of talking, we are mainly focusing on understanding of others. Also, we are trying to make others understand us, but we are not trying to support each other in understanding ourselves. The idea that we don’t even understand our selves is infuriating to us and anyone who points this out to us is hated vigorously.

Supposedly, we already understand ourselves and we only need to understand each other. We don’t need anybody telling us that we don’t understand our selves. We aren’t the least interested in our self-talk, which keeps telling us that we don’t understand ourselves. Ironically, it is inevitable that our negative self-talk sets the stage for how we talk with others. Moreover, we can only keep the lid on our own negative self-talk by constantly focusing on others, by accusing them of not understanding us.

Because Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is wide spread, we don’t realize that the us-versus-them mentality prevents us from understanding ourselves. Only when we consider how we communicate as individual organisms do we get to our lack of self-understanding, which prevents us from understanding each other. We find out about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by listening to ourselves while we speak. We can do this with others, but we can also do this on our own. It is easier to do it alone than to do it with others, because others are likely to distract us from listening to ourselves. This author, who is the founder of SVB, knows that it is possible to have it with others once we know how to have it with ourselves.

Especially, when we are still in the process of familiarizing ourselves with SVB, it is much more effective to be alone to learn to listen to ourselves while we speak. To be able to establish SVB with others, we must go back and forth between talking with ourselves and talking with others. In SVB we learn that we to understand others we must first understand ourselves.

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

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.