June 1, 2014

June 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing was written on June 2. Nothing was written on June 1, which was this author’s father’s birthday. He didn’t call or contact him and he felt good about it. By writing about yesterday, he creates the distance that he needs to be able to write in ways which he may not have done before. He doesn’t hate his father, but he is aware that his father has played and to some extent continues to play a complicated role in his life. He was thinking about him while he was jogging. 

This author was talking out loud with himself yesterday while he was jogging and letting himself know that it is okay the way it is. He didn’t talk so much about his father per se, but rather, about the fact that some years ago he decided to keep his father, as well as the rest of his family, out of his life. This decision has had such a positive influence on his life that he doesn’t want to jeopardize it. There is no way in which he can even think of going back to how things were in the past.

This author likes his life much better without any of his family members in it. His wife, who knows him sometimes better than he knows himself, thinks so too. She often suggested to him to stay away from his family, but he wasn’t listening to her and couldn’t resist the temptation of getting back in touch with them. Yesterday, as the author was jogging near a beautiful creek, thoughts about his family flooded his mind, because he knew they would have gathered to celebrate his father’s birthday. He didn’t even know anymore how old his father was. 

This is an important part of the conversation he had with himself. He reassured himself that he made the right decision and that everything that is currently happening in his life is the proof of that. Also, he explained the reason for this decision: he discovered Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), the vocal communication in which one listens to one’s self while one speaks. He has taught this way of talking for many years now, because it has been such an inspiration to him. 

Yesterday, as he was explaining to himself how SVB has guided him to where he is today, this author addressed the fact that SVB is indeed a very special kind of behavior, which continues to have such reinforcing consequences. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is the case, he wouldn’t have been able to decide what he decided and would have gone insane with sadness and despair. This author, who worked the last ten years with clients who suffer from schizophrenia and all other sorts of mood and anxiety disorders, knows first-hand about the devastating consequences of the lack of reinforcement for appropriate behaviors. 

This author has learned, all by himself, something which nobody could teach him. In effect, he has discovered something which wasn’t there before. Unlike those who suffer from mental health afflictions, his ability to listen to what he has to say allowed him to continue to merge his speaking with his listening, an activity, he found, which seldom occurs, even in supposedly "well-functioning" people.  

Although it may be argued that there is nothing new about a person’s ability to listen while he or she speaks and that we all do this when we name things, what this author gives names to are processes which have not yet been named by anyone. It is one thing, for a child, to be able to say “house” in the presence of a house and to point to a picture of a house when someone is asking “what is this?’” It is quite another thing, for an adult, to have ongoing conversation in which all the speakers continuously listen to themselves and thus to each other while they speak.  

Since this behavior hasn’t been learned, the author’s family members, as well as many other people from his past, had to be left behind. They are left behind, like those who didn’t learn how to read and write. They miss out on reinforcement possibilities this author is now familiar with. They suffer from the lack of reinforcement. There is nothing stimulating about those who stagnated in their development. This author is happy with what he has found and is not blaming anyone for how things are. He understands why things are the way they are. Those who are not open to his work, they are the ones who miss out.