May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Communicators will only be able to say what they feel good about when they express their positive private self-talk (PPST). When there is no PPST, they can only express their negative private self-talk (NPST). As long as people express NPST without realizing that this is what they are doing, they will continue with their Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is negative public speech.

NVB can only be stopped if a person becomes aware, because of the process of self-listening, about his or her own NPST. The only way in which this is going to happen, however, is if he or she becomes aware first of his or her negative public speech. It looks as if NPST causes negative public speech, but NPST is caused by negative public speech! Thus, only our negative public speech can guide us into our NPST. In the same way that a child is taught by his or her parents, the person who is not yet capable of differentiating between negative and positive public speech, depends on someone who is capable of pointing this out.

Only someone who knows the difference, who is capable of teaching it, can teach it to others. Most people actually recognize the difference, but their knowledge does not translate into the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). The difference between negative and positive public speech results in the revision of NPST to PPST if Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is decreased and SVB is increased. As long as NPST remains unchanged, it appears as if this is causing our NVB. Those who are troubled by NVB try to look inside, but they can’t find anything. Yet, whether we know it or not, we are all equally troubled by NVB. As long as our attention is distracted from public speech we are troubled by consequences of NVB which will occur in our NPST.

The fact that some of us are troubled by NPST and others aren’t is related to the extent to which they are able to get away with NVB in our public speech. Regardless how often individuals get away with forcing their NPST on others, they are equally stuck on NPST as those who are unable to get away with expressing their NPST. When individuals are taught to compartmentalize, they are forced into the dance of codependence, in which the enablers enable the addicts.

NVB is addictive, because people who have it want it again and again and need more and more of it. Thus, in NVB communicators are either compelled to force others or they insist on being forced by others. The cover up of NVB is made possible by the masses, who demand to be forced by others, who supposedly lead or guide them. All of this directly ties into the fact that we have been taught to listen to others, but not to ourselves. Although they pretend, those who lead others do not listen to themselves. Their need for attention is insatiable and their hierarchical communication is inescapable. 

     

Those who end up forcing others were taught to do so in the same NVB as those who end up being forced by them. It is the same NVB which causes some not to be troubled at all by their own NPST, but which causes others to be extremely troubled by it. How much we are troubled by our NPST all depends on the extent to which we are able to get away with our NVB. When, due to our conditioning, we are unable to get away with anything, this creates, as it did in the case of this writer, an exploration which might take us beyond our common search for causes that are believed to be inside of us. 

This writer, was, at one point, feeling very troubled by his NPST. It was only when he recognized the link between his NPST and his NVB that he was able to decrease his NPST by decreasing his NVB. However, this behavioral change couldn’t occur as long as he was still looking for the cause of his NPST behavior inside of himself. As long as he was, consequently, still thinking that he needed to change, he wasn’t changing and he couldn’t change, because his NPST was a function of his NVB and not the other way around. 

It was only after thorough exploration of his overt public speech that things began to become clear to this writer about his covert private speech. Thus, with his public speech, he gained increased and better access to his private speech and with this access he began to perceive his public speech in an entirely different way.

Initially, he was determined to sound "good' whenever he spoke with others, but that proved to be much more difficult and more complicated than he had thought it would be. It seemed so simple when he was talking out loud by himself, but once he talked again with others something changed the sound of his voice and he no longer sounded ‘good’. He named his approach the‘sounds-good’method. It is important to note here that sounding ‘good’ originated in his covert private speech experience, which had temporarily become part again of his overt positive public speech.

Later, as this author learned more about behaviorism, he renamed it Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), giving central importance to the sound of his voice, which was different when he expressed himself by himself to himself by bringing out his covert private speech into his overt public speech. Each time he did this, he shifted in his expression from a negative to a positive emotional experience. This shift was so powerful that he would spend hours talking with himself, exploring any kind of topic that came to his mind. It was during these experiments that he slowly began to change his NPST. Again and again he witnessed how his own SVB resulted into PPST. The reader can try it out.

May 13, 2014

May 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It is within the possibility of this writer to read and study the works of others. If he wanted to, he could comment word by word, on the many papers that have been published, but this is not his goal. Today he realizes the academic career he once hoped to achieve, didn’t happen. When he didn’t know what he knows today, he intended to become a psychologist, but, now that he knows about behaviorism, his interest in psychology has vanished. Mental health problems, which once fascinated him, no longer have any appeal, because they are explained.

Since he doesn’t publish (yet) any works in peer-reviewed journals, he doesn’t feel obliged to adhere to a particular style of writing, which is approved by the scientific community. This is, however, congruent with his discovery and exploration of two categories which organize and determine our spoken communication: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Although everyone who comes to his seminars acknowledges this difference, except for the few individuals who have participated more than once, there is no verbal community yet which recognizes this distinction on a continuous basis.

In the same way that this author finds it reinforcing to stay focused on only those aspects of spoken communication, which, although they are available to everyone, are mostly discarded, he only writes about these matters in a manner, which he finds reinforcing. Academic writing is as limiting to him as our usual way of communicating. To stay as close as possible to the discovery he has made, this writer speaks and writes in a particular way to explain to the reader and the listener why his finding is of such great importance.

Now that this writer has articulated of what his speech and his writing is a function, he realizes that things can be written and said which cannot be said or written without this knowledge. This is as true for the reader or the listener as for the writer or the speaker. There are things which can only be written or said when the writer or the speaker is not distracted or obliged by what someone else has written or said. Private matters can only be articulated in a conversation if there is no interruption from other speakers. 

Similarly, certain things can only be elaborated on and accurately articulated in writing, if, during this writing, the attention of the author stays focused on what he or she experiences privately. This has nothing to do, however, with introspection. Since there is nothing to be seen inside of our skin and since there are no external stimuli distracting us from what we privately think or feel, a change will occur in how we covertly talk with ourselves. 

The private speech which we experience when we are reacting to what others are saying and writing is very different from the self-talk that is not a reaction to what others have written or said. The former self-talk gives access to our private events, but the latter prevents us from such access. Only through our private speech do we gain access to our private events. Positive private speech gives us more access to our private events than negative private speech. 

Since negative private speech always signifies the occurrence of a real or a perceived threat, it is not suitable for the exploration of what we experience individually or what moves us as a whole organism. Only a part of what we decide to do or not do is known to us and can only be known to us. Once this part is known, we can talk or write about it. We can help others gain access to those parts which have remained unknown to them, but which can only be known by them. 

The reader or the participant in the seminars which this author regularly organizes need to know about behaviorism in order to be able to gain access to his or her covert speech. Currently, this access remains impaired because of NVB, our predominant way of communicating. Although in our NVB private speech is excluded and comparti-mentalized, which means disconnected, from public speech, this doesn’t mean that we don’t have it or don’t have a need to express it. The urge is so strong that in NVB we forcefully express our negative self-talk, as long as we can get away with it. When we suppress it, it causes other problems. Either way, our NVB public and private speech wreaks havoc. 

The reason NVB hasn’t been analyzed and is because of domination, coercion, humiliation, oppression and forcefulness. Moreover, NVB is based on our lack of access to our private speech. This lack is maintained by our public speech, that is, in NVB, private speech is considered to be separate from public speech. In SVB, by contrast, the opposite is the case: private speech (positive as well as negative) is seen as a function of our public speech (SVB as well as NVB).

NVB is not communication because it always excludes our positive private speech from our public speech. Oddly enough, it includes our negative self-talk into our negative public speech, which continues to undermine our relationships. The justification for this is that our positive self-talk makes us look weak, while our negative self-talk presumably makes us look strong. That only our negative self-talk is over-represented in our public speech prevents both the oppressed as well as the oppressor from exploring their negative private speech. Once this exploration occurs and once the distinction between SVB and NVB is clear, communicators will find out that NVB is a communication stopper, since it excludes our positive emotions.

May 12, 2014

May 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Yesterday afternoon I had a interesting skype-conversation with Mike Worsman from Australia. Our connection got lost multiple times. Each time we both tried to re-connect. He made sure that I was hearing him, but he also made sure that he was hearing me and I was doing exactly the same. Although problems with technology created a little challenge, it didn’t prevent us from connecting. To the contrary, it enhanced our determination to understand each other and to be understood.

Mike and I were having moments of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as moments of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), but for the most part our conversation was SVB. I explained the importance of the environment in causing our behavior, but he interpreted me as someone who is trying to make people more conscious and raised questions about how that is done. Raising consciousness must involve telling people what to do. If we are going to have an effect on people, we need to know what exactly this effect is and how it works. However, Mike, like any non-behaviorist believes that we ourselves decide and that we cause our own behavior.

Mike is a film maker and he is trying to make a difference in how we view the world with his videos. He send me a link of a person, who is dancing in the airport and through the streets, who smiles at strangers and explains that we are held back and unhappy because we don’t express ourselves. This man is trying to change the behaviors of others, but with limited success. The majority of people is probably thinking that he is some kind of maniac. Most are scared and suspicious of him because of his shocking behavior. Although a few people respond to him positively, the majority seems to feel threatened. 

Many attempts like these have been made, but at best the punitive consequences of such actions would lead a person to decrease his behavior or stop it all together. That would have to happen if the person was to develop and increase the kind of behaviors that are truly enhancing him. Although there is no doubt that such a person gains a kick out of shocking people and finds that rewarding, if it was really his objective to change people their behaviors, he would have to be more stable himself to be able to achieve this.

A behavioral scientist is capable of prediction and control of his or her own as well as the behaviors of others, because he or she is familiar with the laws of conditioning that apply. Most importantly, and this often totally puts people off who are not familiar with radical behaviorism, our behavior is not caused by something internal, like an inner agent, consciousness, mind, belief, thought or emotion.

Mike asked me to let him know what I think. Surely, I think he knows how to make great videos. The guy who was on it was clearly visible and audible and his comments on what was happening gave it some context which was missing for most people who met him in person. However, from a behaviorist perspective the change that is most likely to occur will be in the behavior of the guy who is trying to act funny. His unusual behavior may be reinforced by some, but for the most part it will be rejected and this will make acting funny less likely in the future. 

It doesn’t seem to me that this grimacing man, who is demanding the attention of others, is as happy as he pretends to be. Although he acts funny, he seems distraught about the world he finds himself in, which, by his own description, is not very reinforcing to him. He would like it to be more reinforcing, but his extreme behaviors are more likely to elicit responses in the opposite direction. In other words, the dancing man is almost constantly punishing himself.     

May 11, 2014

May 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Texts do not investigate anything, but people do, not while they read, but while they talk. We often read writings in which it is supposedly said that we are exploring something, but when we are reading, we are not talking and because we are not talking, we are neither exploring nor investigating. When we are reading, we are only matching what we read to what we already know. If it matches, we continue to read, but if it doesn’t match, we stop reading. 

The only way in which talking is like reading, is that we only talk to match what we already know, but we don’t talk to explore, let alone to discover something new. The sad fact that most of our talking is like reading and doesn’t allow us to explore anything that is outside of our beliefs, is maintained by the common assumption that reading about beliefs is more or less the same as talking about it. However, reading about stimuli that elicit behavioral responses and confirm our belief is not the same as being exposed to them during a real conversation.

Although a book is easier to be tossed aside than a human being, books, texts and papers, have made it easier to do exactly that. Many writings claim to be able to explain things to us, when in reality they can only confirm what we already know. Also, we are led to believe that these writings demonstrate things to us, but we are only willing to read it, because it reiterates something that was already said or taught. We can’t and won’t read it if it wasn’t first said or taught.

Written words can’t make us think of anything else than what we already believe, but spoken words can. Certainly, our spoken words can make us read something else, but our written words don’t change the way we talk. Other than what people say, we have no access to what they think or say to themselves privately. Unless we talk with each other, we have no way of knowing what other people are thinking. Since speech can only makes sense when it is seen or heard, that is, if it is overt, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) evolve during our life time like any other behavior of any other species, as behavior of the whole organism. References to invisible parts, such as our brains or our minds, cannot bring us any closer to ourselves or each other and cannot lead to the interaction which makes and keeps us conscious, because invisible or inaudible parts maintain the illusion that what is described, that is, the nonverbal, is more important than the description, the verbal. People who would have us believe otherwise, who emphasize that our verbal description is not the the same as the nonverbal which is described, don't know anything about the SVB/NVB distinction. Our verbal descriptions are only important to us to the extent that they describe our nonverbal behavior correctly and that they provide us with predictive control. Our descriptions are useless or confusing if they do not give us control over the behavior that is described. As we all know, many of such descriptions exist. We are only able to separate inaccurate from accurate descriptions in SVB. SVB is the category of verbal behavior which only contains our accurate descriptions, while NVB contains all our inaccurate descriptions.  

The consequence of this learning is nothing to be guessed at because it is visible and audible. NVB can bee seen and heard everywhere because human interaction is primarily based on inaccurate descriptions, which not only determine our individual lives, but also our lives together and how we organize the world. The same selective principles, the same environmental external pressures that gave rise to all living organisms across the generations, are responsible for the behavioral evolution of SVB and NVB. Whether SVB and accurate descriptions will be able to increase depends on the environmental stimuli that make it possible.

Prediction and control of our SVB and NVB, which are mutually exclusive categories of verbal behavior, is analogous to what we know about the similarity between learning and evolution. They work in exactly the same way. Private or covert speech is and has always been speech and should be treated as such. Therefore, we can and we should let others know what we feel and think and get it off our chest. Only in SVB do we embody our language and agree that our behavior is externally caused.

We will not all of a sudden realize that all human behavior, including what we keep calling our mind, is caused by environmental stimuli, because this is primarily a consequence of how we talk. To think that this or other writing is going to bridge that gap is unrealistic. It hasn’t and it can’t. We need to talk with each other to be able to differentiate between SVB and NVB. As stated, our accurate and our inaccurate descriptions can only be discriminated during our public speech. If writing leads to SVB, it is meaningful, but if prevents it, as it usually almost always does, it will lead to NVB. Such writing is problematic because it stands in the way of human  interaction.  

Other than spoken communication we have no way of measuring whether we are refining or preventing the flow of discriminative stimuli. It is not anyone's personal fault that we have been fooled so many times. We  can’t help seeing it that way, because we have been coerced into our false belief about our sense of agency. Once our burdensome private speech is expressed again publicly, we will know that it had to be said. Not saying it and not being able to say it estranges us from our environment and predictably gives rise to many mental health issues.

SVB is pragmatic in that it makes us think about what would happen if we would continue to talk in the way which we enjoy most. Because the usefulness of SVB is so self-evident, it is almost impossible not to think about its positive long-term consequences. The mere thought of achieving it in the future makes one want to dedicate oneself to knowing more about it and to creating the circumstances in which can and will occur. However, we also continue to behave as if only NVB is true, because of its consequences. Because we are punished for our inability to cause our own behavior, we are conditioned to have NVB.

Much of our misbehaving was reinforced by our escape from the punishing effects of NVB. Perhaps most of what is written is a function of our escape from NVB. With more SVB there would be less of an incentive to write or read. Also, we escape from the punishing effects of NVB by writing and reading. In doing so, we disconnect from our environment, In SVB we connect with our environment, which is inside as well as outside of our skin. Reading can’t challenge our belief in the inner causation of behavior and therefore prevents accurate public speech.