October 17, 2014
Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist
Dear Reader,
This writer is an Associate Faculty at Butte College. He
teaches an entry level psychology course called Principles of Psychology. He
enjoys teaching since this gives him the opportunity to interact with students
and to experiment. One of his experiments is giving students the chance to
gain extra credit points by writing a two page thought paper. The paper starts with the verbal instruction “When I listen to the sound of my voice while I
speak, then…..” The students like to do this assignment and write the most wonderful
papers one can imagine.
This writer just finished reading a beautiful
paper that was written by one of his students. It is so reinforcing to read these papers,
because students validate in them so elegantly and elaborately both the workings
and the existence of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).
The student whose paper this
writer just read started out by saying that he is not overly fond of his own voice.
In the second sentence, however, he stated that as a child, he was not allowed speak, he was told to keep quiet and that what he said didn’t
matter. This sums up this writer’s own behavioral history, which led him to
discover SVB. As the student began to listen to himself while he speaks, he
realized that listening to his voice made him uncomfortable. It is
significant this would be the first thing that he noticed. What is apparent
from such a sad, but common statement is that this person was rejected and has
been rejecting himself. Oddly, he was so used to rejecting himself that, until
he did this exercise, it had never occurred to him that he didn’t like his own
voice, let alone, question why that might be the case. Due to the environmental support which he and other
students received from this writer in class, he was able recognize that it was actually quite
strange that he didn’t like to hear his own voice. It didn’t take long for him to say to himself that as a child, he was often not allowed to
speak and hear himself. What he was saying, and what many others have been saying, was that he was made to listen to others, while he was not allowed to listen to
himself. The production of his own sound was not allowed. He believed that
nothing he said was worth to be listened to.
This writer has read hundreds of versions of a similar behavioral history. People continue to engage in NVB because they were conditioned to listen to others and not to themselves. In each paper that was written by this writer's students one can read the same process. First, they don't like to listen to themselves, they fear listening to themselves, they dread listening to themselves, but, because of this assignment, which they must do alone, they listen to themselves and begin to question why it is so strange or hard to listen to themselves? Once this question has been formulated the answer comes out and they let themselves know about how they were coerced to listen to others. Moreover, as they begin to listen to themselves, they fully enjoy doing this and they realize that they have always secretively enjoyed this already.
Interesting! Reminds me of an assignment I had once, about self-talk. We had to notice & record our self talk for a day. Much more difficult than I thought! And it helped me to realize that there was some negative self-talk which I hadn't noticed...
ReplyDeleteDear Unknown, thank you for your response. You are right. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is about the reintegration of our private speech into our public speech. During Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) our private speech is separated from our public speech and consequently, we get stuck with it. SVB public speech leads to SVB private speech, but NVB public speech leads to NVB private speech. Nothing can be done directly with NVB private speech or negative self-talk. By being more often engaged in SVB public speech our positive self-talk will begin to counteract our negative self-talk. It was difficult to notice and record self talk because we are not used to it. We are used to excluding our self talk from our private speech and most of us have bad memories of moments when we included it in our public speech. This has made us oblivious of the fact that our private speech is a function of our public speech that we are involved in or exposed to. An English-speaking person would never have Russian private speech (positive or negative). By taking note of our private speech and by saying it out loud and listening to its sound (your sound), you trace back the origin of your private speech. We are affected by our environments, that is, by other people. When we make overt our negative covert speech, we can feel positive again because we accept it and don't try to change it. Our negative covert speech sounds terrible once we express it we can hear it and become attuned to how we would like to sound. This makes us more mindful about how our interactions with others affect us. What you will find is that the more SVB you engage in the less self-talk you seem to have. In other words, SVB leaves no residue and makes you peaceful and full of energy. The negative self-talk which we don't notice is a result of NVB. Although we don't notice it, it does affect us and it makes us feel stressed, dissatisfied, anxious and distracted. Nothing like this will happen as a consequence of SVB. Even if we engage only in SVB by our selves by talking out loud with our selves we find that it has a nourishing, soothing and stabilizing effect. The key is to say to your self out loud what you think and to listen to yourself while you speak. This is also the basis for SVB. In SVB all the speakers listen to them selves while they speak and this self-listening makes other-listening possible. In NVB, by contrast, other-listening takes precedence over self-listening and so the focus in NVB is on the other. Even when we talk out loud by ourselves it seems as if the speaker is someone else as the listener, but this only seems that way. If you listen long enough you find that the speaker is the listener and that your speaking and listening behavior become synchronized in SVB. Thank you very much for your response.
ReplyDeleteI meant to write "We are used to excluding our self talk from our public speech." Sorry for the mistake.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Reminds me of an assignment I had once, about self-talk. We had to notice & record our self talk for a day. Much more difficult than I thought! And it helped me to realize that there was some negative self-talk which I hadn't noticed...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete....I made a mistake...here is the correct response....There is, of course, no such a process as private speech, but we keep imagining there is, as long as we engage in Disembodied Language (DL). Once we have ongoing EL, we are not integrating private speech into public speech, but we are aware that there is no private speech. This illusion of private speech commonly known as our mind is created by our DL. Please read my current writings (April 4, 2024) and watch my You Tube videos (Maximus Peperkamp or maximuspeperkamp-hw8sw) and acknowledge how my views have evolved in the issue of inner speech...
ReplyDelete