May 22, 2014

May 22, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

It is a feeling of freedom to be able to say something and yet to decide to not say it. This theme is essential to the maintenance of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). With maintenance this writer means that private speech continues SVB, even when public speech consists of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Thus, when negative emotions determine what is said and how people talk overtly in public speech, a person’s private covert speech can still continue with positive emotions. In other words, SVB private speech prevents and protects us from NVB public speech. We maintain peace of mind by not engaging in NVB and by avoiding it completely. 

This writer is amazed by his ability to articulate this phenomenon which so often is completely misunderstood and ends up being a problem that many people struggle with. He used to struggle with this problem too,  but now he often notices he is able to refrain from saying something where in the past he would say something and get himself in trouble.

Our ability to reliably and consistently inhibit NVB by simply refusing to participate in it is a function of how we individually view the relationship between our overt public speech and our covert private speech. As long as a person erroneously believes that his or her SVB private speech is affected by someone else’s NVB public speech, he or she is bound to participate in and contribute to this him or herself. Our inability to continue SVB privately by retreating from NVB publicly is caused by the lack of SVB public speech.   

It is only after there has been enough SVB publicly that we become capable of negating NVB publicly by continuing our SVB privately. Since SVB public speech didn’t happen enough for most of us, our private speech is determined by our lack of SVB. Our tendency to participate in and to contribute to NVB public speech would be decreased if we could experience more SVB public speech. 

However, we are inclined to believe that we can’t experience more SVB publicly because there is something wrong with our NVB privately.  This is mistaken because it is based on the notion that we are individually responsible for NVB privately. The lack of  public SVB sets the stage for the private NVB  belief to persist that we can only have SVB publicly if we first rid ourselves of our NVB privately. This purification-illusion is the reason that we keep thinking that we are individually responsible for how we communicate. 

Anyone, who, like this writer, experienced more SVB publicly, slowly but surely begins to become capable of avoiding NVB publicly, by acknowledging that private speech is a function of overt public speech. What this means is that once there is SVB publicly, there is nothing anymore to figure out psychologically, privately or covertly. Each time an individual thinks  that he or she must work on himself to supposedly attain SVB, he or she misunderstands how SVB works. 

There is no self to work on in SVB and consequently no one gets hurt or upset when NVB is around us. By understanding that our private verbal behavior is determined by  public verbal behavior, we transcend our private selves into social selves, which are modified continuously by our circumstances. Stated differently, in SVB there is nothing wrong with us.