August 19, 2016

August 19, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twenty-first response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). When the reader becomes informed about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) he or she realizes that our common explanations of how we talk with each other are inadequate as long as “they do not involve tracing the observable antecedents of behavior as far as possible into the environment.” 

When the listener speaks in response to a speaker he or she has been affected by that speaker’s voice. This effect determines whether there is going to be SVB or NVB. Even though it is there, we usually don’t give much weight to the importance of this environmental effect. 

Instead of “tracing the observable antecedents of behavior as far as possible into the environment”, we adhere to psychological explanations which are incomplete as they “often do little more than specify some inner process as the cause of a particular aspect of behavior.” When we only talk about what is presumably hidden inside of us, we actually indicate that the circumstances to talk about it weren’t favorable. 

Aversive circumstances that will cause our NVB occur much more often than the appetitive circumstances that will set the stage for our SVB. We haven’t learned to pay attention to how we sound while we speak and as long as this doesn’t change, we are going to produce NVB. 

We can learn how to have more SVB, but the discrimination of SVB and NVB which is needed will only get started if someone, a speaker, points out to the listeners, how a “particular aspect of behavior,” our voice, is an environmental variable which affects how we talk with each other. In other words, we must listen, not look, outside of us, not inside of us. 

Whether one has SVB is not a matter of listening from within, but of listening from without. It helps to know that the speaker produces a sound which can be heard by others, but which is now heard by the speaker himself. Thus, we are not listening for anything inside of us, but for something that is outside of us, that is, the sound which has come out, the sound which has been expressed. Our ability to listen to ourselves while we speak, which makes SVB possible, is not an inner process, but a publicly observable and, therefore, verifiable process. 

The fact that we keep adhering to “explanatory inner processes” which don’t explain anything demands an explanation. The ubiquity of NVB and the low rates of SVB are related to our insistence on this nonsensical “ontological pattern of language.” Once we know about the SVB/NVB distinction our explanation of why we talk the way we do is complete. 

Once we explain what is happening inside of our skin, our covert private speech, in terms of how we are affected our by overt public speech,  by our interaction with other people, who constitute our environment, we have identified a “legitimate functional relationship.” 

The NVB speaker is forceful and insensitive and is eliciting negative emotions in the listener as NVB maintains the hierarchical difference between speaker and listener. Moreover, in NVB everybody knows their place. This is why Day states “In those cases where the private event is conspicuously related to the environment, then reference to the private event is likely to be considered irrelevant or unnecessary for purposes of manipulation and control.” The NVB speaker doesn’t take turns with the listener, who often isn’t even allowed to become a speaker and give feedback.  In other words, NVB is a one-way street. 

Aversive effects of hierarchical differences are absent in SVB. Only in SVB we can realize that “absurd situations” always give rise to NVB. If ”private events are said to control behavior even though they are not themselves directly observable even to a single observer,” most likely we are intimidated by “very complexly constructed verbal behavior.” 

In NVB we fixate on what we say, but we completely ignore, to our own detriment, how we are saying things. In SVB we talk in a simple way as we are not trying to impress or dominate each other with verbal acrobatics. The simplicity and elegance of SVB is parsimonious and scientific, but the bombastic complexity and forcefulness of NVB is always biased.

August 18, 2016

August 18, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twentieth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). No value judgement is placed on the fact that a speaker either produces Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Whether a speaker speaks the truth or not is of no concern at all. Therefore truthfulness doesn’t play any role in discriminating SVB or NVB. 

What the radical behaviorist “wants to know is what makes him say the things that he does.” However, such a focus could never lead him to the distinction between SVB and NVB as it fixed our attention on what the speaker is saying and not to how he is saying it. Although it “leads him to a concern with the environmental events that have acted to teach him to talk”, that concern remains stuck with the words he is using. 

In spite of the fact that the radical behaviorist has “an interest in the possible events in the present and recent environment of the speaker that bear some similarity to the stimulation available to the verbal community in providing initial differential reinforcement”, this concern with content couldn’t bring him closer to the SVB/NVB distinction.  

It is of great importance to discriminate the environmental influences that make us say what we say. Radical behaviorists have analyzed this very successfully. Yet, “tracing the environmental chain of command over verbal behavior as far as possible” would “extend the range” of “effective action as a scientist” a million fold, if it also included why and when a speaker elicits positive or negative emotions in a listener. 

In SVB speakers express, evoke and maintain positive emotions in listeners, but in NVB they stimulate and maintain negative emotions. These lawful response classes are universal and mutually exclusive; as SVB increases, NVB decreases and as NVB increases, SVB decreases. During any given verbal episode (a lecture, conversation or a meeting), there is an accumulative effect of the instances of SVB or NVB. 

Speakers perceive or don’t perceive the stimuli in their environment, listeners, which either make them produce more instances of SVB or more instances of NVB. Although most speakers, over the course of their development, acquire enough control over their verbal behavior to be able to speak the language of their verbal community, regardless of the positive or the negative circumstances, the tone of their voice clearly indicates that they are not in control over how they sound. 

Naturally, what speakers say as well as how they say it is controlled by environmental variables. How we speak is not determined by some inner behavior-controlling agency, but by the environmental stimuli, that is, by those with whom we speak. Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction focuses on how we speak as it makes what we say of secondary importance. 

What the speaker says becomes more or less important to the listener because of how he says it. Interestingly, Day suggests “when a student begins to suspect that he senses some order of a particular kind in human functioning” he “must not fail to proceed directly to an explicit verbal description of what he has seen that appears to make him think he has found something.” Such an explicit description is however only possible in SVB, but cannot be articulated when we are involved in NVB. 

Academic focus on description of what has been seen obviates what has been heard. The ubiquity of NVB prevented the description of the SVB/NVB distinction, which first of all requires a careful analysis of the environmental control of the speaker by his own listening behavior. The speaker’s ability to hear himself, which is present in SVB, but absent in NVB, is about how he speaks, not about what he says.    

August 17, 2016

August 17, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my nineteenth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). I know a wonderful philosopher from Romania. His name is Cristinel Munteanu. Every couple of months we have a lengthy conversation by skype. He recently send me his latest paper, which is about the linguist Eugenio Coseriu’s views about the “Hermeneutical Principle of Trust”. 

Cristinel and I always engage in SVB as we are both interested in exploring the importance of trust during our interactions. Coseriu (1994), who, like me, is “interested in the science and in the reasons of the speaker” states “the speaker is always right, only that we have to establish from what point of view he is right.” 

Coseriu’s “Principle of Trust” is of great clinical significance. No matter what the client says, they are always right from their point of view. To acknowledge that opens the door to have SVB with anybody, even the most impaired. 

It is a shame most radical behaviorists are stuck with behaviorist jargon. I learned a lot from my friend Cristinel and from my mental health clients and students. Their influence on me makes me a better behaviorist. 

Day was also inspired by the “Principle of Trust” when he stated “the verbal community has taught a variety of practices by which we guess at relevant factors, some more useful than others.” 

Cristinel says “the speaker is right when he uses or creates language, but he may be wrong when he tries to give “scientific” explanations to language facts (when he turns into a “naïve linguist”). However, such a belief proves admitting the same “principio de la confianza.” 

 

We have to accept a person’s behavioral history as what caused him or her to behave the way he or she does. So, “The case is not prejudiced for an interest in what someone has to say about what he considers his own private experience.” My client’s negative private speech has to be viewed in context of NVB public speech form which it originates. 

As NVB can’t accurately describe the reality it dissociates us from it. The dissociation of the client in yesterday’s writing is now put into proper context. The fact that NVB is our normal way of communicating means that we are all in multiple ways dissociating from the natural world, but for various reasons some are dissociating more than others.

When I talk with people who are suffering mental health problems it often strikes me that they are more aware than everyone else that they dissociate. When they are given the chance to speak about their lives they explain without holding back why they feel so disconnected. As this fact is not acknowledged this makes them dissociate even more. 

I agree with Day, who states “Verbal behavior constitutes by far the most convenient avenue of access to anything that might be considered a significant aspect of human knowledge, including one’s own knowledge of himself.” However, it is not as simple as he makes it out to be. “If we want to find out more about what a man is experiencing in a certain situation, one of the simplest things to do is to try to get him to talk.” 

We can only get a person to talk if we talk in such a way that we as speakers don’t aversively affect the listener. The listener will only become an overt SVB speaker if we facilitate SVB to him or her and invite him or her, but he or she will not be willing to speak overtly, that is, he or she will have covert NVB private speech, if we don’t realize that we approach him or her with our NVB overt public speech. 

Day seems to refer to this when he explains “Of course, whether or not we trust the speaker depends upon the nature of the environmental control exercised by him over our own behavior.” In NVB the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency.

August 16, 2016

August 16, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my eighteenth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Day writes “the verbal community has taught us a variety of practices by which we guess at relevant factors, some more useful than others.” 

Only to the extent that our verbal community has taught us Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) will it cultivate the practices with which we can predict rather than guess at the “relevant factors” (as we do today).

The natural world is only relevant for those who can engage in SVB, but it is absolutely irrelevant to those who only know how to have Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). To the extent that we were conditioned by NVB, we will inevitably continue to enforce our views onto the reality.

Our justification for the outcomes of NVB, the presumed usefulness of coercive behavioral control, predicts more problems in the future. . Once we know about the SVB/NVB distinction, we realize that our verbal community has taught us a great deal of complete nonsense. 

It is not that some practices are “more useful than others”, but rather that some practices are useful, while others are utterly useless. NVB is useless as it will forever keep us guessing “at relevant factors.” 

With NVB we are incapable of describing, addressing and solving our problems. We can only know about the natural world to the extent that our verbal community taught us the practices that make that possible.

Our way of talking either brings us in touch with the natural world of which it is a function or it prevents us from being in touch with the natural world. SVB is scientific, but NVB is unscientific interaction. We can no longer afford “a variety of practices,” we need to teach SVB. 

I am not guessing at “relevant factors” as I know exactly what I am doing. I had to rearrange my schedule for my therapy clients as the Fall Semester at college is about to start. I treated eight individuals in one day! How is it even possible that I can successfully give therapy to eight different people and still not feel tired? Actually, I feel great, because I know each client was helped by what I have taught them. 

I waste no time talking about anything else and I teach each one of my clients about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

One client, who dissociated from her emotions, writes about each of her sessions. She told me I challenge her thinking. As she enjoys this, she realizes she is capable of deeper thoughts than she was having before. Moreover, she is surprised that after each session her thinking is clear. She has moments in which she opens up and then she retreats again and we discuss the changes which occur when she switches from one to another. 

When she opens up, my body relaxes and when she distances herself, my body tenses up. She disconnects from her body while she speaks, but slowly, step by step, she is beginning to embody her communication during her interactions with me. Each session she is becoming more and more talkative and genuine. It is as if she is coming alive. Although she often tries to contradict what I am saying, our conversation brings her attention to how she experiences her own sound while she speaks. 

I am not trying to change what she is saying or how she sounds, but I let her know when she sounds a little better and she agrees with me. As we explore why she also feels a little better, she produces more SVB and decreases her NVB. As these subtle changes are accurately described and verified, she notices her belief about herself is disproved and she is more relaxed. Although I only refer to the SVB/NVB distinction, she say that each session is very different as my interventions activate the speaker-as-own-listener.

August 15, 2016

August 15, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my seventeenth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Many things Day talks about resonate with my discovery and investigation of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

I am the radical behaviorist that he is writing about, who is “likely to feel that the most effective means of acquiring knowledge about some aspect of behavior is the attempt to learn how to shape up that very behavior in which he is interested.”

Also Skinner speaks to me as he states “it is possible that we shall fully understand the nature of knowledge only after having solved the practical problems of imparting it” (1969, p. 392) (italics added). 

I am able to fully understand the nature of SVB as I have imparted it. My teaching doesn’t depend on this writing. I have solved the problems of imparting SVB and know my understanding derives from my teaching.

I think it is IMPOSSIBLE “that we shall fully understand the nature of knowledge” as long as we haven’t “solved the practical problems of imparting it.” Unless we are going to teach the SVB/NVB distinction, that is, unless we learn how to condition decreased rates of NVB and increased rates of SVB, we will not have attained a full understanding about how we interact with one another. I mean this very seriously!!!

Stated differently, how we interact every day, which is mainly NVB and only for a small portion SVB, demonstrates we don’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction. Solving the practical problems of imparting the SVB/NVB distinction is a challenge mankind still has to wake up to. 

The radical behaviorist “holds the view that all verbal behavior, no matter how private its subject matter may appear to be, is to some significant extent controlled by the environment.” I invite everyone.

Once people have learned to discriminate between SVB and NVB it is easy for them to understand and accept what they sub-vocally say or think to themselves is the same as how others have talked with them. 

Behavior is lawful and predictable: we have SVB private speech to the extent that we were involved in SVB public speech and we have NVB private speech in proportion to our exposure to NVB public speech. 

All our so-called mental illnesses have their origins in the separation of our private speech from our public speech, which occurs during NVB. To recover from the afflictions which are caused by the separation of the speaker and the listener, clients must be taught by behavioral engineers that public speech and private speech are one only in SVB.

During NVB it is impossible to trace private speech to the environment from which it originated. Radical behaviorists must engage in SVB to know “that the range of phenomena related to human verbal functioning varies from the most intimately personal to the most spectacular social” and to see “that all meaningful language is shaped into effective form by the action of an environmental verbal community.” 

It is not merely “contact of language with the environment that enables us to respond effectively”, but our involvement in SVB that teaches us how we affect each other as speakers and listeners. 

The “common environmental contingency” that “controls both our own behavior and that of the speaker whose talk is of interest to us” is a listener-friendly contingency, for if it wasn’t, the talking would be of NO “interest to us”. Note that Day talks from a listener-perspective.

“To be sure, it is only rarely possible for us to perceive directly the relevant environmental variables as they operate to shape the verbal behavior with which it is concerned.” No doubt, he stated “it is only rarely possible” as he experienced only moments in which he had SVB.