January 12, 2015

January 12, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

How we can learn Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is a more important question than how we can stop Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It seems people are forever side-tracked by their problems and never get to explore the spoken communication that is without problems. Unbelievable as this may sound, SVB is without problems. NVB, by contrast, consists only of problems, which do not get solved and which only get bigger. It makes sense to accept the possibility of SVB. Our refusal to investigate this hypothesis not only denies the possibility to understand our problems, it perpetuates the communication which maintains our problems. 

Although many aspects of SVB are often already known to us, we have no idea of how this behavior actually works. As a consequence, this behavior does not and cannot occur. This in itself is a huge problem, since we have a hard time admitting that we don’t know how spoken communication actually works. We are so used to NVB that we rather continue to pretend that we know how human interaction works, than that we give ourselves and each other the opportunity to learn how it works. Real human interaction is SVB, but since we feel so embarrassed to find out that we don’t know it, we continue to mistake NVB for SVB. The learning process of creating, exploring and verifying SVB has to be initiated by someone, who knows exactly how SVB works, who can detect when SVB is happening, who can reinforce the response class members of SVB and who will extinguish all those response class members that constitute NVB. This writer is that person and the reader can become that person too, if the reader would talk with this writer.

Let's be clear about this, although we are somewhat familiar with it, for most of us SVB only occurs accidentally. This writer or anyone else, who really knows about it, can only reinforce it, if it already naturally occurs. The small amounts of SVB that naturally occur do not happen deliberately, skillfully or consciously, like writing these words. If SVB occurs, it happens because the situation momentarily existed in which could occur. To this writer's knowledge  nobody has analyzed SVB and NVB like he did and thus nobody can reliably and consistently create and maintain the environment in which SVB can and will occur. As of yet, there is not much SVB to be reinforced. 

If we have SVB, we know that we have SVB and if we don’t know whether we are having SVB, we are not having SVB and we are having NVB. This either-or-function is another phenomenon we need to get used to. Either we are having SVB or we are having NVB. There is nothing in between. When SVB is on, NVB is off and when NVB is on, SVB is off. These universal response classes of verbal behavior are mutually exclusive. Another way of saying this is that each time SVB begins, NVB ends, but each time NVB begins again, SVB ends. Although human interaction fluctuates between SVB and NVB, we have not yet given full attention to this phenomenon. Most people are completely taken by surprise, when they for the first time take note of this simple distinction, which, once made, makes such a great difference. Each of the response class members of SVB must be separately reinforced, because the complete SVB response pattern doesn’t yet exist. The complete NVB response pattern, on the other hand, does already exist.

'Our usual way of communicating’ is something which, if we want to have SVB, needs to be extinguished. Our NVB has to be stopped, before SVB can begin. People who go through this process realize they no longer do what they usually do. Although they are initially instructed by this writer, they consent and then they instruct themselves. They find by listening to their own sound while they speak that they can stop their usual way of communicating. Once they are able to stop their own NVB, they begin to produce more SVB. There must be someone like this writer, who shapes the verbalizer's behavior with the method of successive approximation. 

Similarly to a sculptor, who chips away at a piece of rock and then makes a statue emerge, this writer, and later, the verbalizer him or herself, prunes the NVB until the SVB begins to occur. However, the student of SVB doesn’t yet know what SVB sounds like, because he or she wasn’t reinforced for it. Perhaps he or she was reinforced for aspects of SVB, but never for the response pattern as a whole. The analogy of the sculptor is useful, because sculpting involves a skill, which as it accumulates is reinforcing because of its positive consequences. A skilled sculptor wouldn’t knock off a piece of rock of a statue where the nose was supposed to be. The approximation of the target behavior, in this case a proportionate face, requires many trials in which the master instructs the apprentice. If the instruction is appropriate, if the apprentice produces better and more proportionate faces, his or her skill will become perfected. Similarly, a range of responses will be reinforced, because they come close to SVB.

“In essence, shaping is the repeated use of differential reinforcement for conditioning a behavior that is initially not occurring” (Ledoux, 2014, p.312). Variations of behavior are bound to be evoked by this writer, when he begins to explain the SVB/NVB distinction. People talk for all sorts of reasons, but the basic function of spoken communication is instructional. The math teacher is only a good math teacher if his or her students understand him or her and become proficient in math. Similarly, this writer’s instruction is specific and always results in ongoing SVB. This is not bragging, but a fact that can be verified. Students, who are in his psychology class for the duration of a whole semester, describe in their papers that they experience, understand, practice SVB and explain it to others. In each class meeting the accumulative effects of SVB can be observed. Repeated use of differential reinforcement shifts the student’s behavior to “the center of the variation range of the current” and, over time “toward the target behavior” and conditions “a series of new response variations toward an initially non-existing target behavior (Ledoux, 2014, p. 313).

January 11, 2015

January 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Already in the abstract of her paper, Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos (2012) hits the nail on the head. She posits that the controversy among behavior analysts regarding the definition of verbal behavior “might be based on a misreading of Skinner’s (1957) writings.” Regarding the interpretation of the verbalizer by the mediator, it is important to take note of the fact that Passos immediately focuses the reader’s attention on the mediator. When we read someone’s writings, we are mediators of that writer. However, our ability to do mediate and not to read things into Skinner’s writings which he never said, is determined by our history with our verbal community. Perhaps it takes a writer like this writer, who is a relative newcomer to the behaviorist verbal community, to be sensitive to the fact that practically all behaviorists carry with them the conditioning from their non-behaviorist verbal communities. 

The “examination of Skinner’s correspondence with editors of scientific journals” which shows “his knowledge of contemporary approaches in linguistics” is suggested to “help settle the meaning of the passages involved in the controversy.” Like this writer did in his previous writings, Passos informs her audience of the context in which Skinner came up with his definitions and refinements. What she has written was meant to help the mediator mediate the verbalizer. This is needed, but the conditioning acquired in pre-behaviorist verbal communities cannot be counteracted by some written language. To make behaviorists fully verbal would require them to speak. Not only their written, but also their spoken verbalizations should come under evocative control of behaviorist principles. This involves being one’s own mediator. 

All who have followed the instructions from this verbalizer, all who have listened to themselves while they speak, all who put the words from this verbalizer to the test and have explored during multiple conversations with others the interaction between the verbalizer and the mediator in one and the same person, in themselves, have agreed, have mediated correctly, that is, errorless, with 100% interrater-reliability, that there are two universal response classes, SVB and NVB, in every language, in every society. 

 

SVB has an ecto/public and an endo/private speech dimension. Similarly, NVB has an ecto - and endo speech dimension. In addition to SVB ecto-speech, there is Sound Nonverbal Behavior (SNvB) endo-speech. Also, in addition to NVB ecto-speech, there is Noxious Nonverbal Behavior (NNvB) endo-speech. Each of these categories is evidence that not only verbal, but also nonverbal behavior “is mediated by other persons”. An example of NNvB would be “there’s something wrong in this picture.” One might also describe this as “having a gut-feeling.” The verbal statement is NVB, but the distrustful tone of voice is NNvB. An example of SNvB is “I love you” when you really mean and feel it. SNvB refers to the tone of the statement, while SVB refers to the content of the statement. It is useful to identify verbal and nonverbal aspects of positive interaction and to recognize verbal and nonverbal aspects of our negative conversations. 

The paper starts with a quote from Manoel de Barros (2007), who wrote: “Only words were not punished with the natural order of things. Words continue with their unlimit.” This statement is a consequence of NVB, in which the verbalizer and the mediator are not one and the same person, but different persons. Words, like everything else in the natural world, are determined. We must turn to the nonverbal to get a sense of what our words are a function. The only way in which we are going to reliably do that while we speak, is when we are stimulated to listen to our nonverbal expression, to the sound of our own voice. Production of and feedback from our own sound happen simultaneously when we listen to ourselves while we speak: our sound is in the here and now and our listening is also in the here now.

How else can Skinner’s discussion with journal editors about “details of some aspects of grammar” be interpreted than a verbalizer’s attempt at instructing and educating the mediator in terms of how he wishes to be understood? Passos attempt at “rewording” Skinner’s words is yet another attempt by a verbalizer at enhancing the mediator’s ability to mediate. Many mediators lack Skinner’s “sophisticated mastery of English and his knowledge of contemporary approaches of linguistics” and, consequently, are incapable of mediating him correctly. Similarly, someone who hasn’t taken any classes in algebra, is unable to solve a quadratic equation. 

The reason this lack of learning can be addressed in college algebra, but not in behavior analysis is, because, as Barros has said, “Words continue with their unlimit.” In algebra, the student/mediator would be corrected by the teacher/verbalizer and this should improve a student’s ability to mediate the teachers teaching. There should be no difference in teaching behavior analysis or math. The teacher/verbalizer should have the opportunity to correct the student/mediator with more than just words written in a paper. The verbalizer ought to be able to alter the nonverbal mediation of the mediator. Essential to SVB is the verbalizer’s ability to change the mediation of the mediator and the mediator’s ability to change the verbalizer’s expression.

This writer is specifically interested in the adjustment which Skinner made in his definition of verbal behavior. In Chapter 8 of Verbal Behavior (1957), he refines it as “behavior reinforced through the mediation of other persons [who] must be responding in ways which have been conditioned precisely in order to reinforce the behavior of the speaker.” (p. 225). This author believes Passos is absolutely correct in stating that this is “a restriction on the first part” (that verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other persons). Moreover, he agrees it was Skinner’s aim to “circumscribe verbal behavior as a particular kind of social behavior.” In addition, he thinks that Passos is right on the mark with her statement that Skinner’s restriction is not “stated clearly enough”, which then leads to the question “Which ways of [social] responding are these to which the listener has been conditioned?” 

This writer thinks of the distinction between SVB and NVB and considers these as two mutually exclusive ways of responding. The listener who has been conditioned to respond to NVB with obedience and conformity, is not even allowed to have any social response. According to this writer, only SVB is a social response. Skinner basically avoided taking a clear stance on an issue which would directly challenge the establishment.

Accepting NVB as social behavior makes discussion about social behavior meaningless. Social behaviors are the ways in which people through their relationships enhance each other and are benefitted by each other. When enhancement, as in NVB, happens at the expense of others, one may ask “why and how does this mediation [of social behavior] affect the behavior of the speaker in such an important manner that it requires an analysis separate from the rest of operant behavior?” Mediation definitely requires an analysis separate from what we, because we have called it operant behavior, have accepted as social behavior. However, mediation of survival behavior can only under certain safe circumstances give rise to social behavior. SVB makes this analysis possible. Skinner seems to refer to SVB when he states “the listener is conditioned to respond in ways that reinforce a speaker’s behavior presenting the patterns found in “the ‘language’….that is, the reinforcing practices of the verbal community” (p. 36).

Skinner, who as a verbalizer, is trying to change the way the mediator talks about behavior. He wants the mediator to do more than only mediate. His more integrated definition of verbal behavior in the paper "Upon Further Reflection" (1987), serves that purpose: “Verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other people, but only when the other people are behaving in ways that have been shaped and maintained by an evolved verbal environment, or language” (p.90) [italics added]. Skinner wouldn’t have added and emphasized the behavior of the mediator, if this behavior didn’t include the ability of the mediator to become a verbalizer. 

There is nothing particularly “evolved” about a verbal environment in which the mediator is only supposed to mediate and the verbalizer does all the talking. Such an unevolved and harsh environment is one in which we have NVB. Moreover, the linguist Max Muller, who influenced Skinner, warned against language as a uni-directional “thing by itself”, in which verbalizers get “carried away by the very words which [they] are using.” In the sentences “Language has no independent existence. Language exists in man, it lives in being spoken, it dies with each word that is pronounced, and is no longer heard (p.58) (italics added)” Muller empowers Skinner, the be a verbalizer.

Wegener, another linguist who influenced Skinner, described language as “a collective name, indeed an abstraction, for certain muscular movements of man which are connected with a definite sense for many persons of a social group.” (1885/1971, p.121) (italics added). The mediator must also be a verbalizer, according to Wegener, who identifies “certain muscular movements of man which are connected with a definite sense for many persons of a social group.” However, when mediators no longer verbalize, they are no longer “connected” with “a definite sense of a social group”. 

This writer agrees with Passos that “Skinner found a way of making clear that mediation by others is not enough to characterize verbal behavior.” The restriction he put on his initial definition ("verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced by the mediation of others") is “still vague because it does not state clearly the ways in which the mediator is behaving.” It is another linguist, Peterson (2004), who sheds light on the reciprocal nature of verbal behavior. He states “by mediated consequences, of course, he meant consequences controlled by another person.” This writer wants to remind the reader, that “the social mediation of the reinforcement process became the primary defining factor” for verbal behavior, because Skinner was unknowingly talking about SVB. “Social mediation of the reinforcement process” does not apply to NVB, because NVB is the hierarchical coercion by the verbalizer.

Malott, a behaviorist, worried that Skinner’s ambiguous definition of verbal behavior might create facilitated communication (FC). FC is a technique which allegedly allows communication by those who were previous unable to communicate due to autism or mental retardation. However, controlled tests conclusively have demonstrated the only one doing the communicating is the facilitator. Interestingly, FC exactly describes NVB, in which our talking is supposedly done for us by others. Danger of FC does not occur with SVB. 

The paper written by Passos is only used by this writer to elaborate about SVB and NVB, his extension of Skinner’s work. Only elements which illustrate the distinction between SVB and NVB are used and the rest of the paper is not considered. He agrees that Skinner’s knowledge of linguistics and literature explain why he defined verbal behavior in the way that he did, but this writer presents a new analysis of the verbalizing mediator. 

This writer is grateful to Passos for her improved version of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior, because it includes a reference to the form or the topography. “Verbal behavior is operant behavior whose properties are selected by the reinforcing consequences action of a mediator on the basis of their correspondence to the conventions of a community.” Although SVB and NVB are two response classes, which occur in every community, this writer wants the reader to know that SVB and NVB are maintained by two entirely different communities. Actually, to be more precise, only SVB qualifies as a community, because NVB makes the word community meaningless. NVB implies the absence of reciprocal, social, bi-directional communication. NVB is certainly a stable pattern of behavior that is based on common conventions, but it can only create the illusion of community.

Passos ends her paper by stating that language is “the very part of natural phenomena that result mainly from social interaction regulated by the conventions of a group.” This writer writes because he finds something very important is missing from her analysis. No matter where people are, they talk with each other and have SVB or they talk at each other and have NVB.

NVB does not result from social interaction, but signifies the absence of it. There certainly is orderliness to SVB and NVB, but the vast differences in predictable relations of speaking and listening in either one warrants urgently our closest attention. In SVB there is continuous turn-taking between speakers and listeners and that is why speakers can be really speakers and listeners can be really listeners, but in NVB, there is no turn-taking, and, consequently, speakers basically don’t listen and listeners basically don’t speak. We are conditioned by and mostly engaging in NVB, because we don’t know yet how to create and maintain SVB.

January 10, 2015

January 10, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

Last night, this writer dreamed about the things he had read before he went to sleep. It seemed as if during this dream the material was reiterated, and, because of the repetition, consolidated. When he got up, he felt eager to reread what he had read the night before and was ready to write about it. 

The paper he dreamed about was titled “B.F. Skinner: The Writer and His Definition of Verbal Behavior” (2012) by Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos. This writer had, on previous occasions, read two other papers by this author, which stimulated him so much that he contacted her. He was so lucky to have a long and heartfelt conversation with her. The paper which will shortly be discussed had been saved to be read later on, but somehow this writer never got to read it. When he began reading it yesterday night, he felt the same jolt he had felt when he had first read the abstract. 

How we define things is a matter this writer never paid close attention to. Due to his behavioral history, this writer was more inclined to evaluate what was said in terms of how it was felt by him. Although this limiting approach has given him many problems, it was also reinforcing, because it selected and enhanced the development of new verbal behavior, which he describes as Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). His definition of SVB came about, because at some point in his life, his spoken communication reached such a low point, that he, out of sheer frustration with the same negative outcomes, decided not to talk with others anymore and began to talk with himself instead.

More importantly, because he began to talk with himself, he began to listen to himself and he was able to identify the sound of his voice, which he wanted to use, while speaking with others. As he honed in on this sound, which he only seldom had been able to use in conversations and became familiar with it, he felt like a musician practicing on his instrument. The sound of SVB instantly changed his predominantly negative private speech. Once he had identified SVB, his positive self-talk led to new public conversations, which came about because he successfully instructed others to do as he did. They too began to listen to themselves while they speak and began to produce a different sound, which then set the stage for a new way of talking, SVB. 

SVB derives from how we sound when we speak with a sound which is pleasing, relaxing, energizing, calming and thus reinforcing. Stated differently, in SVB the verbalizer and the mediator are the same person. Moreover, SVB is the mediator’s perspective of the verbalizer. The saying “It is not what you say, it is how you say it!” captures how our verbal behavior is functionally related to our nonverbal behavior. Verbal behavior emerges from nonverbal behavior phylogenetically, over the course of evolution, and, ontogenetically, over the course of our life time. The Bible claims “In the beginning was the word”, but there were no words to begin with. There was first only a sound and verbal learning is based on nonverbal learning. Human beings have existed for a long time without language. And, even with language we are not yet fully verbal. We are born nonverbal and we learn our language from our verbal community. SVB aligns our verbal and our nonverbal expression. In SVB, we can become fully verbal because speaking and listening are joined.

The aforementioned explanation, evoked by Passos’ work, is evidence of how this writer is affected by what he has read. The title of the work:  “B.F. Skinner: The Writer And His Definition of Verbal Behavior” evoked another response in this writer. The expression “Don’t put words into my mouth!” refers to the interpretation by the mediator, who, as a speaker, is expected and forced to speak in a way which is determined by the previous speaker.  The mediator wants the words to mean what they mean to the mediator and not what the verbalizer wants them to mean. As a speaker, the mediator might say: “I didn’t say that. Stop putting words into my mouth,” because he or she doesn’t want to be mediated or interpreted in the way the speaker wants him or her to mediate or interpret him or her.

The mediator’s ability to mediate the verbalizer in the way that the verbalizer wants to be mediated depends on the mediator's behavioral history with his or her verbal community. If the mediator’s history is such that he or she was never allowed to have his or her own interpretation of the verbalizer, then this mediator is more likely to mediate the verbalizer how the verbalizer wants to or demands to be mediated. If, on the other hand, the mediator’s history is such that his or her own interpretation is allowed to effect and even change the verbalizer’s meaning, so that the verbalizer can connect with and stay connected with the mediator, this interpretation of the verbalizer is more likely to lead to a more attuned form of communication, which is SVB. 

The saying “Don’t put words into my mouth”, indicates the mediator gave his or her spoken feedback to the verbalizer, which, most likely, the verbalizer didn’t like. That is, there occurred an actual instance of turn-taking, because the mediator became the verbalizer and the verbalizer became the mediator. 

When a verbalizer says “Don’t put words into my mouth”, he or she basically says “Don’t talk back at me, only obediently mediate the meaning, which I can enforce on you, because I am more powerful than you.” By the way, the expression “Don’t talk back at me” is a version of the verbalizer instruction to the mediator not “to get any ideas” or become “mouthy” as a verbalizer. It is clear that these expressions are all meant to establish the verbalizer’s dominance over the mediator, which is a characteristic of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The servant is not supposed to talk back at the master and the child is not supposed to talk back the parent or teacher. The dominated are not supposed to give any feedback to those who dominate them. 

 

A related expression is “Don’t even think about it”, in which the verbalizer doesn’t want the mediator to think about something because, supposedly, the thought alone is bad. As this example illustrates, as long as the mediator is not talking about it, he or she is believed not to be thinking about it and thinking about it is supposedly prevented by not speaking about it. Of course, this is total nonsense, but given the absence of an accurate analysis of the way in which the mediator mediates the verbalizer, this power-differential is never properly discussed. Moreover, the expression “Don’t even think about it” also refers to the superstition that something might happen merely because one thinks about it. Presumably, by not thinking about it, one can prevent it from happening. The dominance of the verbalizer over the mediator is called NVB. It is called NVB because, if asked, the mediator will tell the verbalizer that he or she perceives the voice of the verbalizer as sounding terrible. The fact that the NVB speaker never asks the mediator how he or she perceives the verbalizer and is not open to feedback even if it is given, results in a way of talking in what is said is distracted from by how it is said. Thus, NVB fosters faulty mediation. In SVB, by contrast, the mediator effectively mediates the verbalizer, because the verbalizer sounds good to the mediator.

January 9, 2015

January 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

This author ran into two people who had recently participated in his seminar. They produced Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) right away and it was wonderful to hear them speak about it with clarity and interest. One of them asked why we don’t usually have SVB and have what this author calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)? This author answered that although many things can be said about how we communicate, it makes sense to focus on just these two ways. During SVB we are in touch with each other and ourselves, but during NVB we are neither in touch with each other nor with ourselves. The person acknowledged this and rephrased his question and asked why he was able to understand SVB while others aren’t? This author answered that he and other people have different behavioral histories. He emphasized that although he is the one who teaches SVB, others have responded to him by reinforcing him. 


Their response to what he teaches is based on their past. Certainly not everyone responds to this writer like these two men. However, it is important to recognize that also this writer, although he is the originator of SVB, has learned all he knows from other people whom he has met in his life. And, allthough nobody has ever taught him about SVB as such, others have taught him the behavioral components which make up SVB. Interestingly, the person asked a question about his Catholic religion. The experience of SVB, to him, expresses what he considers to be his belief in God. 

It is perhaps no coincidence that this author was also raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. The person then stated that Catholicism is just another language and this author agreed that Catholicism, like any other religion, is determined by how we behave verbally. What this author refers to as SVB often evokes all sorts of spiritual connotations, but the point of this writing is to clarify that we are talking about positive emotional experiences, which are important to us, because they are reinforcing. SVB is essential because it allows us to decouple our actual experience from the mystical explanations which we usually give to it. By having an explanation of SVB, by recognizing what we considered to be our belief as a way of behaving verbally, we are better capable of cherishing and sharing the experience by how we talk. 

This goes for any system of thought, any political, ideological, philosophical or cultural view. When we talk about our individual experiences, we are behaving verbally, but we are often not recognizing the extent to which we fail to express verbally what we experience in our body, non-verbally. We often think that we are verbal while in fact we are nonverbal. What this writer calls verbal fixation makes us lose touch with our non-verbal/body/experience/reality. NVB is our disembodied communication. Attention for our sound while we speak brings us to SVB in which we acknowledge the commonalities of our non-verbal experiences, which previously had been given false explanations and couldn’t bring us to the fact that our different beliefs have been ways in which our words were separating us from our nonverbal environment. 

In SVB our words will deepen our connection with our environment, our body. The other person also made a profound comment. He articulated his need to be in an environment in which he could practice SVB. This may seem like a simple statement, but it has many implications. The most easily overlooked implication is that SVB can only occur if the contingency to make it happen is available. Without the necessary ingredients to make it happen, SVB cannot happen. These ingredients, however, are environmental stimuli, which occur inside the skin and outside of the skin of all the communicators involved. 

The environmental variables that stimulate and maintain SVB are produced by the combined stimulation from internal and external stimuli. Such stimuli are also known as endo-stimuli and ecto-stimuli, respectively. What is more, the function of endo-stimili can be altered by ecto-stimuli and also the function of ecto-stimuli can also be altered by endo-stimuli. In other words, SVB is made possible by the ongoing interaction between a verbally-behaving organism’s endo – and ecto – environment. Although there is private, endo-speech, with which an individual covertly talks with him or herself about the non-verbal ecto-environment, this sub-vocal self-talk is only as good as the overt ecto-speech the person has experienced. Given the fact that SVB at best has only occurred in an occasional, irregular manner, most endo-speech reflects NVB, that is, it is insensitive to the ecto-stimuli, which are occurring in our current environment. Freud used to call these defense mechanisms. 

The only way to reverse this pathological process is for the verbalizer to become his or her own mediator. Speakers must listen to themselves while they speak. To be in an environment in which one can practice SVB is a tricky thing because one cannot practice it and one doesn’t need to practice SVB. To the contrary, once one knows what the environment must be like in order to have SVB, one finds, one is having SVB. If, however, the necessary endo – and ecto – stimuli for SVB are absent, SVB cannot and will not occur, and, unless one leaves this contingency, one will not engage in SVB. 

The person who expressed the wish to be in the environment in which he could practice SVB, instantly created this environment, because he met this writer, who on previous occasions had taught him how to create and maintain this environment. Thus, the person was demonstrating to this writer how capable he had become. He instantly recognized their meeting reinforced his SVB and expressed his wish to continue with it forever. This evoked a burst of laughter and they both embraced each other. The person thanked this writer for teaching him and this writer thanked him for allowing him to teach. 

As this writer is writing about this event, he notices how his body responds. A subtle energy rises up from the bottom of his spine to his skull and he experiences a sense of thankfulness. It is SVB that stimulates this writer to write these words. He thinks of the many people with whom he has shared his ideas and feels so fortunate to have found this new way of talking. This one person, who asked him to teach, makes this writer incredibly happy. It makes all the rejection by those who don’t want to have anything to do with him irrelevant. Today is a day of joy, celebration, relief and attainment.