October 12, 2014

October 12, 2014

Written by Maximus  Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer had another good night sleep and woke up from a dream about his father. He was seated across the dinner table. His father was talking at him in an admonishing manner and he pointed the knife at him with which he was cutting the meat. This writer, who in the dream still was a little boy, told him not to do that. Moreover, he told him not to do what he himself had instructed his kids not to do. His father put the knife down and walked over to him and his brother, who had agreed and who had said “yes dad, you said so yourself: you should never point a knife at someone at the table.” The two sons were defying their father and were ready to get slapped by him, but it didn’t happen. Instead, as the father came closer, he became smaller and when he had reached around the table, he was no bigger than the two boys themselves. He just stood there as if he was waiting for permission. This writer reached out and his father then crawled onto his lap and put both his arms around him. His brother, who was sitting next to him, also put his arms around his father and they said “you are a good father.”

Yesterday, this writer had watched a movie about World War II, which had made him think again about his father, who was still a little boy at that time. Also, he had had a wonderful barbecue with his wife and they had eaten steak, which they had cut with sharp knives. The dream was a reinterpretation of this writer’s father’s behavior. His knife-pointing was a warning about the terrible danger in the world, which had left him traumatized as a child. A beautiful aspect about the dream was that the brothers were again united in their love for their father. 


This writer no longer has contact with his family, because it was always having negative consequences for him. When he read the dream to his wife, tears flowed down his cheeks. This writer is happy with this dream, which signals the positive changes he is going through. Although he is not going to resume his contact with his family, it feels as if he has. Interestingly, there was nothing in the dream about his mother. For whatever reason, this writer seldom dreams about his mother.

October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

After nine hours of sleep this writer is feeling fresh and awake on a  Saturday morning. It has been a busy and intense week, which ended in a pleasant and relaxing manner. Friday morning group went well and the conversation about communication put the events which had happened during the week in perspective. Also the afternoon, during which there was no group and during which this writer was able to catch up on his paperwork, was smooth sailing. 

A new development happened this week. The two persons this writer is daily working with are two women. Unfortunately, his boss, who coordinates the job-site and his colleague, who like him, also leads groups and does case management, are manic talkers. They never say things in a simple manner, but use a lot of words to say what they say. Especially his colleague is extremely controlling and intrusive in the way in which she speaks. His boss is controlling to a lesser degree because she is, because of her position, entitled to elaborate more on how things are supposed to go.

Although he often misses what his boss is saying, because she talks so fast, he finds it easier to talk with her and to understand her, because she adjusts to him much more than his colleague, whose voice sounds very demanding. When the two of them are talking it is almost impossible to get in between them. This writer has learned not do that anymore and to wait until they give him the opportunity to say something. This works much better and helps this writer to stay calm. 

This writer considers the voices of his boss and his colleague most of the time as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). By staying out of their NVB as much as possible, he is slowly but surely having more Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) with  them.

  

By just listening to their NVB, he is not getting involved in NVB himself and when he speaks they have also more attention for him. His colleague often says things which are annoying and challenging, while his boss more often says things, which are supportive and giving structure. By saying less, this writer is having better communication and able to maintain his peace of mind. 

It is difficult for everyone to figure out how to communicate with each other. This writer, due to his discovery of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), sees things not the same as most people do. Moreover, since his views about spoken communication are explained by behavioral science, he no longer adheres to the false notion that the communicators cause their own verbal behavior.

Throughout the week there was a lot of communication going on about the manipulative behaviors of the parolees and the probationers, who are in the program. Although this writer sees his colleague as more demanding than his boss and hears this in her voice, his boss said something, she had said before, which was strongly emphasized. Although the emphasis was directed at his colleague, who is not as familiar with the mental health symptoms as this writer, what his boss said made this writer  think. The discussion was about one particularly manipulative female parolee, who, according to his boss, who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), has borderline personality disorder. The way in which she emphasized that people with such diagnosis beyond their teen age years “are never able to change” struck this writer, who, based on his knowledge about how behavior is maintained by environmental variables, has a more positive, but also a more realistic outlook. If this client is indeed “always going to do what she wants to do” this writer wonders: what then is the purpose and legitimacy of our program?

It is clear to this writer that he is not going to have any discussion with his boss about this matter, because their difference of opinion, once clearly expressed, is bound to create a problem. This writer will continue to treat this particular client in the same way as he treats everyone else, which is, that change and improvement is possible for everyone. Certainly, it makes no sense to get into an argument with one’s boss about this, because she doesn’t have the knowledge in which this writer’s way of working is grounded. It is not this writer’s role in his job to educate her or to contradict her. When this writer can quietly think this to himself he feels a peace of mind, which he wasn’t having as long as he felt that he had to say what he thought. It is such a relief to be able to keep his thoughts to himself and to avoid trouble. This writer’s behavior is under control of his knowledge about behaviorology.

October 10, 2014

October 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It became a habit for this writer to write at least one page in his journal every day. In the past he made many audiotapes to which he still sometimes enjoys to listen to. Although he realizes that writing is not the same as talking, he has come to enjoy it almost as much as speaking. He hasn’t made his writings public and also his audiotapes were never listened to by anyone. This writer has not published a book or a paper and hasn’t made his audiotapes about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) public.

During class students were talking about video-recording the interaction and putting it on YouTube. This writer would be grateful if someone who knows how to operate this technology could help him with that, but given the fact that people have often said such things in the past and never did anything,  he is not that eager put much energy into it. The best results so far have always come from immediate contacts with people and not from any publications or promotional activities. 

While reading the book “Running Out Of Time” (2014) by Stephen Ledoux, it  occurs to this writer that even this knowledgeable man doesn’t recognize the need to distinguish between written and spoken aspects of the verbal episode. It is odd that this writer, who is so against writing, is now writing about speaking, which can’t be replaced by writing. Yet, under the circumstances that he is currently in, it is easier to write for him than to speak about SVB. This wasn’t always the case and it is interesting to look into why this has changed. 

In recent times, this writer – as a speaker – has so often been acknowledged and validated, that his need to speak and to be validated has dramatically decreased. Before, he had an intense urge to speak, but that urge has calmed down. Also, almost on a daily basis, he receives requests to write about his views. The few times that he let people read his writings, he received positive reinforcement. He now has a better understanding of the possibilities of the written word and is open to reaching people with his writing. Yesterday’s classroom discussion was a direct result of that.   

Class Room Memory Assignment

Discuss in groups of 5 any of the following :

-         What does it take for you to remember?

-         When you forgot something…what happened?

-         Why is it difficult to forget or easy to remember?

-         Where was it that you kind lost it (?)..your mind?

-         When did you find yourself back?

-         When did you forgive and remember the good times?

-         When do positive memories become painful memories?

-         Do you have trouble remembering what is important to you?

-         What does this exercise remind you of?

-         What are your first memories?

-         Can you think of memory without asking yourself a question?

-         What distracts you from remembering your purpose?

-         Why do you always only remember certain things and not others?

-         How are meaning and memory related?

-         How does your emotion effect memory?

-         Does your body remember things..give an example.

-         Does one place remind you of another place?

-         Does music bring back memories?

-         What do you recall about those times in which you felt free?

-         What has being in the moment has to do with memory?

-         Does trauma affect memory? Increase it or decrease it?

-         Is memory a real thing or is it something we imagine?

-         Does someone who is bilingual have two memories for each language?

-         When was the last time that you felt happy that you forgot something?

-         Do we only remember what we want to remember?

-         How does knowledge change memory?

-         Is knowledge memory or is memory knowledge?

Another reason why speaking and listening is much more important than writing and reading, is because reading and writing is always done alone, while speaking and listening is done together. Stated differently,  Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) involves the simultaneous behaviors of the verbalizers and the mediators. During SVB our individual behavior doesn’t matter, because what really matters is how the communicators behave together. During Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), however, it is the individual behavior of either the speaker or the listener, which matters. In NVB, the behavior of the verbalizer and the mediator never matter simultaneously.

This writer had not made this distinction, which is of importance for a functional account about our interaction. It is necessary to describe, explain and predict the behavior of individual organisms, but that description is not sufficient to explain how we behave together while we communicate. Whether we are having SVB or NVB signifies two different worlds, one in which we are at peace, the other in which we are perpetually at war. The consequences of our verbal behavior are far-reaching. When we are unable to analyze how our individual behavior separates us from our behavior together, we lose our sanity. Individual behavior only makes sense in terms of how we behave together. During SVB we make sense of ourselves and each other.

In SVB we notice how we affect our environment and how we ourselves are affected by our environment (by others). Whether we are verbalizers or mediators is not relevant, because in SVB there is turn-taking and thus, we switch back and forth between being a verbalizer and a mediator. Another way of stating this is that our endo-environment and ecto-environment are continuously interacting with each other and that this interaction sets the stage for SVB. However, the lack of interaction between an individual’s endo- and ecto-environment, sets the stage for NVB. Thus, in SVB we adhere to the fact that we exist in one natural environment, but in NVB, we claim the falsehood that we exist in separate idiosyncratic worlds.

October 9, 2014

October 9, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Yesterday evening’s class on memory was an enormous success. For starters, this writer decided not to give his usual quiz. This helped the students to feel at ease. Then, he talked about his own history and his withdrawal from his Ph.D. study in Psychology, after which he discovered that he was a behaviorist. All of this was to stimulate the students to think about their own lives and struggles and to invite them to talk about their memories. The entire class was engaged and many students felt comfortable enough to speak about the events going on in their lives. 

An Iraq-veteran spoke illustratively about his PTSD symptoms. He talked about his recent participation in festivities in the Ardennes to commemorate those who fought and died there in World War II. He had been to similar events in Normandy. He said that although people come there to remember war and terrible loss, over the years, these horrors slowly fade and become replaced by happy memories about the comradery among the soldiers. 

Another student, who had been abused as a girl, questioned what she remembered about herself. All she knew about herself before the age of 10 was what other people had told her and she wasn’t even sure if what they had told her was true. She didn’t get into the details, but it was clear that not knowing what had happened had bothered and frightened her a great deal.  

Other students were so excited about how our discussion about memory related to Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) that they proposed to create a video about it and put it on YouTube.  They agreed that they could create new memories for many other people by posting our interaction on Social Media. Something happened in this class. There was a lot of energy in the room and everyone was awake and involved.

Students stated that their classroom discussion demonstrated and proved to the world that SVB is possible and necessary. It seemed as if they suddenly realized that they had the power to change things. One student came to this writer to speak about her former employer. She was still in contact with her and wanted this writer to give a seminar for this big educational organization.