February 14, 2015

February 14, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

It is a mistake to construe mental health problems which many people are struggling with as problems which lie in what people tell themselves about their lives and the world in which they live. There are no selves and people therefore don’t and can’t talk to themselves. Even though people believe they do so covertly or overtly, they only always talk with other people. Any therapeutic process that focuses on how people talk with themselves is based on the fiction of an outdated inner behavior-causing agent. 

The only process that needs to be considered is how people talk with each other. When our overt conversation with others is deeply problematic and is not leading to any positive relationships, there are bound to be covert consequences. Simply stated, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) private speech is a function of NVB public speech. Nothing can or should be done with NVB private speech, because others don’t and can’t have access to it. The only thing we can do something about is our public speech, because it is observable, audible behavior. 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) public speech always results in SVB private speech, although the distinction between SVB public speech and SVB private never even arises. The distinction between private and public speech only matters in NVB, because in NVB they are dissimilar. Thus, our only problem behavior is NVB public speech, which can only be replaced by SVB public speech. NVB private speech is never and has never been the problem, but mistaking that as our problem, we ignore NVB public speech and we keep missing out on SVB public speech. 

Whether we know it or not, most of us are, day in day out, struggling with NVB. We think we are troubled by our own dysfunctional verbalizations, which must be changed. We do all sorts of crazy things to change the way we talk with ourselves, we presumably restructure our cognitions, increase our self-esteem or become more persistent, because we seem to be telling ourselves we can be what we want to be.  Since we believe we can change our belief about ourselves by ourselves, this is how we view others. We readily believe others are deluded by what they think, by what they believe and by whatever nonsense they say to themselves. However, in both cases we are wrong: we neither can change the way in which we talk with ourselves nor can we change how others talk to themselves. 

The fiction that people talk with themselves is maintained by NVB. In NVB people imagine that they have private speech and they are paranoid that others might have it too. In SVB, there is no difference between how we talk with our selves or with each other, so the distinction doesn’t arise. Actually, in SVB we only talk with others, but not with ourselves. There is simply nothing to talk about because by ourselves we are just quiet and peaceful. Communication makes no sense by ourselves. 

When people talk out loud, overtly instead of covertly with their so-called self, they find that speaker and listener are one and the same person. In SVB the distinction between speaking and listening is as irrelevant as the distinction between one’s right and one's left hand. Although two hands behave differently they are part of one and the same body. Thus, also while talking out loud alone, it is only public speech that matters. Similarly to talking with others, when one has NVB while talking alone, there occurs a separation between the speaker and the listener, which creates and maintains the illusion that there can be such a thing as talking with one self. When one listens to oneself while one speaks, one attains SVB and the public speech versus private speech difference is understood as being always related to NVB. Listening makes speaking possible only in SVB.

   

When a therapist interacts with a client this conversation is in not any different from any other conversation: the public speech of the therapist influences the public speech of the client and, the public speech of the client influences the public speech of the therapist. Ideally, of course, the SVB of the therapist extinguishes and replaces the NVB of the client with SVB, but given the general ignorance about this important distinction, most likely the NVB of the therapists is a little less than the NVB of the client, which then temporarily increases the SVB of the client.

  

For SVB to be maintained after the therapy sessions there needs to be SVB with other people than the therapist. Unless the client can have SVB with others, he or she will not be able to maintain it. Even if the client was someone who talked out loud a lot, the automatically reinforcing effects of SVB would only occur if the therapist had focused on the public speech of the client. Moreover, the client’s ability to talk out loud by him or herself would only maintain SVB, if the client had been conditioned to tune into the nonverbal aspects of what he or she is saying. 

As in any other conversation, the client-therapist interaction is primarily a process of discrimination and reinforcement. Although the therapist may reduce the client’s NVB and evoke and reinforce some SVB, the client has to have SVB with others to be able to continue with it. Without additional reinforcement from others, SVB is not enough reinforced and will be extinguished. Since most therapists don’t even know about the SVB/NVB distinction, interventions at best only lead to temporary small increases of SVB and temporarily small decreases of NVB. It is unlikely that these limited effects continue after the therapy is over. The reason is for this is that therapists don’t focus on altering public speech. Specifically the extent to which the nonverbal aspects of our public speech are properly addressed during therapy determines the outcome of the treatment.