June 16, 2014

June 16, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Most of us have more and better developed speaking behavior than listening behavior. This is why listening while we speak has such remarkable results. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is the spoken communication in which speakers listen to themselves while they speak. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) we speak more than that we listen or we listen more than that we speak. In NVB our speaking and listening behavior are separate. They can’t be joined because they have grown apart. In NVB speaking and listening behaviors grow further and further apart. In SVB they come back together and become synchronized. There is a way of speaking in which listening becomes more increased and speaking becomes decreased.

Unless one experiences SVB it is hard to believe that it is even possible, but it is necessary that we understand how it works, so that we can arrange for the circumstances that make it possible. When it can occur, it will occur and when it doesn’t occur, it can’t occur. The adjustments which need to be made are not in others, but in the individual speaker. Each communicator is both a speaker and a listener and each of us can only individually arrange for the joining of our speaking and listening behaviors. We cannot do this for each other. Our tendency to try to do this for others prevents us from noticing that we can and must do this for ourselves. However, we can set the right example for others.

Only when one has SVB by one self, one can discover what one cannot discover as long as one stays involved with others. Others are likely to distract us from listening to ourselves. Others want us to listen to them or in the presence of others we want them to listen to us. In either case, we are more likely to listen to ourselves while we speak when we are alone than when we are with others. This solitary self-talk can also be seen as a way of checking in with ourselves. What happens in this solitary process has often been described as meditation.

This writer introduces the reader to the possibility of conscious communication. SVB is the way of speaking in which we are conscious of ourselves and each other. NVB, by contrast, is our mechanical way of talking, in which we are on automatic pilot and unconscious of ourselves and each other. We are conscious or unconscious because of how we speak. Only when we are alone and talking out loud with ourselves, are we able to let go of the words and slowing down our speaking. Only when we are alone are we inclined to calmly experiment with the increase of listening and the decrease of speaking. In most spoken communication we are not allowing ourselves and each other to be alone.  In NVB we can’t leave each other, but above all, ourselves alone.  In SVB, we let ourselves be who we really are and we let others be who they really are. 

Being who we really are indicates a return to our nonverbal selves. This return is necessary to align our verbal behavior with our nonverbal behavior, which is another way of saying that we are joining our speaking and listening behavior. In SVB, we are both verbal and nonverbal, but neither one distracts or disconnects from the other. In SVB, we become fully verbal, because we stay in touch with our nonverbal experience. In NVB, by contrast, we are either too verbal or we are too nonverbal. Mostly, in NVB, we are too verbal and those who can’t stand that gravitate towards becoming more nonverbal. Those who have problems with language are more nonverbal than those who cause them. The lack of language, diagnosed as autism, is inversely related to too much language,  to too much overwhelming emotional language and too little calm, non-emotional language. Language problems are created and maintained by NVB and are solved by SVB. 

As long as words, which we are supposed to learn at a young age, come to us as aversive stimuli, they will mainly enhance our nonverbal behaviors. The lack of relationship, neglect and being repeatedly coerced into listening, also sets the stage for multiple so-called mental illnesses.