November 15, 2013

November 15, 2013

Dear Reader, 

I came down with the flu and went to bed early yesterday night. My dream was about my father’s confusing invitation: we can talk about it! No matter how difficult it may be or how much we are not inclined to it, we can still talk about it. When that happens, everything comes together. I have been dreaming about this the whole night. I have a headache. My body feels heavy and sluggish. My thoughts are not clear. I worry because in my evaluation it was stated that unless I improve I will not be rehired next semester. I will improve. There are many things I can do to improve. I will learn and get better. I don’t feel well, that is why I am worrying. I need to give myself a break and take it easy.  

I notice things that other people don't notice. Someone was unreasonably harsh towards me, but then she spoke in praise of someone else who “who couldn’t get any better.” She suggested I that I should watch his behavior and learn from him. I will do that. We ran into each other at Starbucks.  We talked, but I felt disagreement. Since I am a behaviorist, I don’t believe in activism. I don’t believe in demonstrations and in getting hassled by police for what I believe. I refuse to be a martyr. However, he was the prototype of a martyr. I have historically been more of a rascal. My approach to behavior challenges authority. I had made the mistake of telling him about my seminar. He was not going to come, but he inquired about it. He was cold towards me and thinks that I am not spiritual enough.

My head is spinning and I am dizzy. I just took a bath, but still do not feel well. I think I might go for a little walk. There are a couple of things I want to do today. First, I want to make a study guide for the upcoming multiple choice and essay exam. Second, I am going to have a haircut. Third, I will go by our new house to take some pictures. Fourth, I want to have my blood drawn. Five, I am going for a short walk. Six, I am thinking about my family with whom I no longer have contact. Tomorrow it is November 16, which is my 55th birthday. This weekend, I give another seminar at the Chico Branch Library and I mustn’t forget to pick up the key. I’m still feeling weak and sick, but I’m getting better. 

I never knew my life would be like this. I was reading my hand-written journal from the time that I was preparing for my Ph.D. All of that anxiety and stress is luckily behind me now. I don’t feel the urge anymore to achieve it and I am no longer sad about it. I didn’t fit in with the academic world. Because of my self study of behaviorism, I have tried to contact many behaviorists, but none of them were interested in taking note of my approach. I wanted them to talk with me because I do not think that writing and reading about it works. They didn’t believe me. Even the daughter of B.F. Skinner, a very nice lady, doesn’t have the time to talk with me. Everyone is always just too busy. They are all running after something, but for Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) they don’t have any time. 

This writing makes me think about my life. Everyone seems to be hyped up by approach behavior, but nobody recognizes the importance of active avoidance behavior. This writing is an attempt to actively avoid. Nothing happens while I write these words. I would like to say that I like people, but that would be dishonest. I don’t like most people. I only like those who are open, but most people are closed. Most people fake it much better than me, but at this moment, having the flu, I am tired of this charade. Why do we always hide? Most people who hide don’t know they are hiding. I know of many people who think of themselves as open and honest, but they don’t know what they are talking about. 

November 14, 2013

November,14, 2013

Dear Reader, 

Turning away from my negative covert self-talk, is the best kind of passive avoidance behavior I can achieve. I haven’t been able to turn away from my negative self-talk, because I was trying to make my private speech part of my public speech. The only signals that I have been looking for were those that were telling me whether I could talk with someone or not. Although people gave me the signal that they were willing to talk, I found out that this was often not the case. I responded to their signal, but did not notice their the other signals, which must have been there as well. There must have been other signals, which I ignored or did not notice. These signals are now becoming noticeable when I hear a noxious stimulus from which I used to escape.

Because of my respondent or involuntary behaviors, my operant behaviors, such as detecting and avoiding the aforementioned negative stimuli, could never fully develop. This isn’t surprising if I take into consideration the environment that gave rise to these autonomic fight/flight responses. The punitive presence of my father was such that escape was only possible for me by getting out of the house. As a kid, I was always playing outside on the street. Inside, my room was my only escape, but, unlike my mother, my father would force his way in. One incident comes to mind, in which I locked myself in my room. My father banged loudly on the door. He screamed and threatened to break the door. I don’t know how often I was hit, but it must have been many times. I still fear being hit. 

My fear of being hurt led to an emotional response in situations when a rational response would have  been more appropriate. My ability to rationally respond is limited by how my nervous system was conditioned. Is it possible to recondition my reflexive responses to a threat? Each time I responded in an emotional manner it had negative consequences. I tried to change and avoid these consequences, but even today I find myself incapable of it. Lately, instead of fleeing, I defend myself, but fighting back still makes me emotional. Instead of avoiding I have learned to stay in the situation. I have gained some success and confidence from my approach behavior and by assertively pushing back. 

 

I now need to ease into my approach behavior, so that I can increase my avoidance behaviors. I need to get better at responding to signs which allow me to avoid threat of social disqualification.  I need to know what these signs are. They are not approval. Approval is a set up for failure. By paying attention to safety signals, I keep in touch with persons who are a potential threat to me. This is not done by trying to get something out of them or by getting them to do things for me. By appeasing them, by keeping them calm and by giving them my positive attention, I succeed. It is not an approach behavior. It is primarily an avoidance behavior, to be nice to them and to play along.  

I want to say something else about my incapability of preventing emotional reflexive behavior. I have gotten better at it, much better, but under stressful circumstances it remains an issue. Stressful circumstances are evidence of not enough or no effective avoidance behavior. They should have been prevented to begin with, but they weren’t. Why weren’t they prevented? Because I was not aware I was getting stressed. I should be extra careful under such circumstances. The incident due to which I got stressed out was very straightforward: I lost a credit card and I locked myself out of my car. Such alarming signals should have alerted me to step on the breaks for any type of approach behavior.

November 13, 2013

November 13, 2013

Dear Reader, 

A longing was felt to write once more with a pencil. Yesterday evening I scored the quizzes of my students with pencil and this made an otherwise tedious job enjoyable. Also, at work, I wrote a shopping list with a pen and that was enjoyable too. We barbequed at the creek with the clients and after the sausages had been grilled, I threw the shopping list in the fire. This symbolic burning of my old writing made everybody laugh and we had a good time. My urge to write with a pencil and a pen had been satisfied. Because I have been writing my journal on my laptop for a couple of days, I got  used to it now. I have been going to bed much earlier these days, which allows me to wake up earlier to write for a couple of hours. I like to start my day by writing. 

My new way of writing is more thoughtful. I don’t write whatever comes to my mind anymore and I stick to my particular theme. Tonight it is my longing to do something I have done very often. This tendency can be stopped only if it comes into the picture. It takes patience and calmness to let that happen. If I do not consciously step back, I am inclined to step forward. Active avoidance behavior is contrasted with approach behavior. I wonder what stimuli make me approach? Are there are stimuli available to make me avoid? If I would like avoidance to occur more often, stimuli would have to be available to me to make that happen. I think that this is something I can improve my life with. 

On a couple of occasions, I was scanning my environment for stimuli that enhance my active as well as my passive avoidance. In active avoidance I do something to avoid a particular consequence I do not want. For instance, if I don’t want to be around a person, I must keep my distance. In passive avoidance, I refrain from certain verbal behaviors under certain circumstances, if I sense that these cause tension or discomfort. At work, I would not talk about certain topics with certain people, because I experience that as unpleasant. Passive avoidance, the not doing of things, is a behavior from which I can be benefitted.  It is important to know the difference between doing and not doing.  

Passive avoidance characterizes my ability to have self-control.  I notice as I write about this topic, that my attention is going to something which supposedly is inside of me, instead of outside of me. Stimuli that make me decide not to do something are traced to my private self-talk. This makes me close myself off from signals from my external environment. Perceived threats immediately result into withdrawal from signals from my external environment. Due to my reflexive behaviors, instead of looking for environmental signals to be avoided, my self-talk goes in overdrive and makes me turn away. Because instantly my internal environment is affected, I am prone to activate escape instead of avoidance behavior. Since escape behavior so often occurred in my behavioral history, it became more prominent in my behavioral repertoire than my ability to actively or passively avoid. I have never been good at letting things slide. Indeed, I often got and I still easily am upset under aversive circumstances. Avoiding such circumstances altogether was never my consideration. I have been constantly in the grip of what was my conditioned fear response. Until recently I was not paying attention to the signals that would allow me to avoid aversive consequences. Most likely, these safety signals had always been there, but I never noticed them or listened to them. My behavior can be regulated under such circumstance by looking for such signals. To enhance my passive avoidance, I must turn away from negative public speech and its, consequence, my own negative private speech.    

November 12, 2013

November 12, 2013

Dear Reader, 

It must be said many times: we need to learn to differentiate between what spoken communication really is and what it is not. We keep referring to all sorts of processes which have nothing to do with spoken communication. This author refers to these processes as Noxious Verbal Behavior, because it is about people adversely affecting each other. Spoken communication breaks down when there is aversive stimulation. Break-down of spoken communication is not part of spoken communication. We must learn to think of spoken communication as a process that either starts or stops, that is or is not happening. The assumption that spoken communication is happening because we are producing words, is based on the conditioning effects of NVB, in which we get carried away by our words.

Because we have been conditioned by NVB, in which we talk at instead of with each other and because those who are supposedly doing the talking for others make them believe that what they say counts, we think that the hierarchical way of interacting seen in non-human animals also pertains to us humans. However, this is not true. Humans have specific verbal communities, in which specific languages are shared. Speaking only makes sense in the light of a listener, who determines whether what was said, was understood or could be understood. It is as impossible and utterly stupid for an English speaker to demand to be understood by a Chinese listener, who has never been exposed to English, as it is for a speaker to enforce supposed meaning onto a listener. It doesn't work. 

Mediation by another person, the crux of Skinner's verbal behavior, has not yet been firmly placed on the map. If it had, our countries, religions and cultures would seize to exist. The imaginary inner, autonomous agent, which, according to Skinner, distracts from the analysis of observable behavior, makes some speakers believe they are more powerful, intelligent or moral than others. This is why they think they should do all talking, be in control of what others have access to, determine the conversation and decide who may say something and when. Regardless of whether a person’s self-importance is derived from his genes, race, gender, economics, education, culture, politics, status or religion, these are all equally problematic. 

  

Men’s autonomy, which in Western culture determines his identity, is not to be discussed at all cost and has basically remained an unaddressed issue. Identity can only be properly analyzed once we are in the position to do so. NVB is too blunt to address it, but SVB reveals that our identity itself is the reason that human beings have so many communication problems. When we have SVB it becomes clear that we are indeed our brother’s keeper, we are each other’s environment. Only in SVB are we capable and willing of exploring the extent to which we are influenced by each other as well as the extent to which we are influencing each other. In NVB we don’t care about how we affect each other.  

In SVB we express ourselves wholeheartedly and we are flexible about our identity. We have always done this with those with whom we felt safe, accepted and at ease. With them we do not hang on to who we are. To the contrary, with them we can be our selves. SVB teaches us that we communicate most effectively without our overrated identity. This is done by recognizing NVB for what it is. Each time NVB is identified, SVB will blissfully continue, but each time we do not recognize it, SVB is made impossible. It is not that NVB takes over, but it is because SVB can no longer occur. Our ability to discriminate between SVB and NVB determines the extent to which SVB can and will happen again. It will happen every time when the situation is making it possible. Only when we feel safe and at ease, can we really communicate. Only then the speaker and the listener are perceived as one.

November 11, 2013

November 11, 2013

Dear Reader, 

 

We need to know much more about what goes right in our spoken communication before we will be able to understand, change or prevent what goes wrong. In other words, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) can only be derived from Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). It is important that we look at the total picture of how we communicate and not only at the parts which we don’t like. However, since very little goes right in most of our daily spoken communication and since so much goes wrong, our tendency is not aimed at understanding what went right, but rather, at hanging on to what went right. Unfortunately, even those small parts that went right, over time become less and less, because they didn’t and couldn't lead to an accurate understanding of how this was possible in the first place.  

    

It is not so much that we are obsessed with what goes wrong with our spoken communication, it is more that we can’t avoid bad results as easily while we age. Most spoken communication is so bad that it is too painful to be reminded of it. Since our lives are examples of how spoken communication became more problematic, there is a general shared motivation not to address this issue any longer. We dread speaking about the problems caused by how we communicate, because our analyses have proven totally useless. We have stopped looking for solutions and “don’t even go there” because they created more problems. The parts that go right in spoken communication are constantly threatened. 

When someone incidentally, occassionally, seemingly miraculously produces SVB, this person is envied by all those who are troubled by their own NVB. Because SVB becomes increasingly scarce, less and less people are looking for it. Occasionally, SVB may be achieved, but it was never achieved consciously, deliberately and skillfully. The reason it was achieved at all was because our innate need to have it always won from our cultivated need not to have it. In other words, we keep having SVB in spite of ourselves. It is weird how upside down things are with regard to our spoken communication: the fact that we can’t be without SVB is actually our biggest communication problem. Since our need for it hasn’t gone away and will not ever go away, we better learn about what SVB really is. 

The truth about human relationship is that we need each other and that spoken communication only makes sense if it accurately expresses and fulfills our shared needs. Certainly, our needs can also be exploited by others. In the latter, we continue with our familiar patterns of NVB, but in the former, we experience a process of learning. Although we’ve had it in bits and pieces, we never had SVB consistently. To reliably have SVB requires knowledge which can only be obtained if we keep speaking with one another. Learning SVB requires subsidence of NVB. In SVB people co-regulate each other by what they say as well as by how they say it, but in NVB they dis-regulate each other. 

Neither our own, nor the needs of others are represented by NVB, our dominant way of communicating. SVB teaches that we can’t and shouldn’t try to represent the needs of others in our spoken communication. Unless we stop our pretension about expressing the needs of others, we remain incapable of expressing and fulfilling our own needs. Certainly, we need each other to express and fulfill our needs, but nobody can be the voice for someone else. The false notion that we can express the needs of someone else is at the root of all NVB. Each human being expresses his or her own need, but for our needs to be fulfilled, our spoken communication must be bi-directional instead of  uni-directional. NVB must give way to SVB.