March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) makes clear that our verbal behavior disconnects us from our nonverbal experience and makes us more nonverbal. Due to our common way of communicating, due to our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we make it seem as if the verbal is more important than the nonverbal. This belief is problematic because nonverbal experience needs to be accounted for verbally. NVB doesn’t allow the necessary discriminative refinement to make that happen. Although we may become more wordy, in NVB our words don't make contact with our nonverbal experience.

In spite of our elaborate use of words, our society as a whole is becoming more and more autistic. Our emphasis on words has made us tone-deaf. In NVB, we just don’t realize how terrible we sound. And, the fact that we don’t sound good signifies that we usually don’t feel good, while we speak. We have accepted as normal a way of communicating in which we always feel tense, anxious, stressed, agitated, overwhelmed, distracted, intimidated, argumentative and defensive. Such negative behaviors also indicate that we don’t feel safe or at ease. As we are conditioned by NVB, we expect it and we don’t know what to do with moments of SVB. Paradoxically, positive moments then become a problem, because they make us realize that a better way of communicating is possible if only we knew how to achieve and maintain it. We don’t know about SVB. 

Since we are accustomed to NVB, we neither stimulate ourselves nor each other to listen to the sound of our voice while we speak. NVB has not only conditioned us to listen to others, but it also prevented us from listening to ourselves. Many people, when they for the first time are asked to listen to themselves, find that they have never done this. Consequently, there is great hesitation and fear about something which was never reinforced. While talking, most people filter out the sound which represents their well-being. And yet, this absurd fact about spoken communication is only apparent when we engage in the kind of conversation during which we explore how we sound while we speak.