May 23, 2015

May 23, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Readers, 

 

One of my students, who is suffering from depression, wrote in a two-page paper (which had to start with the sentence: “When I listen to the sound of my voice then…. “), that he didn’t like to listen to the sound of his voice, because he was afraid when others hear him they will not be flattered by it. In other words, he is not listening to himself, but he is imagining how others are hearing and judging him. Interestingly, he also mentions, he doesn’t like his own sound, because other people sound smarter than him. He doesn’t talk about what they say, but he refers to how they sound. This person has hardly said anything in class during this semester, but he once explained to me that he is struggling with fear for embarrassment and social rejection. 

Because of this extra credit assignment, he was speaking and listening to himself, even though he told himself that he didn’t like what he heard and as a result doesn’t dare to say much. As a consequence, he discovered and explored that his private speech consisted of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is the vocal verbal behavior in which the speaker (in this case himself) controls the behavior of the listener (also himself) with a negative contingency. 

It is important that we learn from this depressed person that he was really not listening to himself, because he had not been speaking. He was only able to listen to himself again after he began to speak, and, most importantly, after he began to speak with himself. While speaking with others would most likely not result in him being able to listen to himself, speaking with himself made him listen to himself, for the first time. As he continues to speak about the fact that he experiences these anxieties, he finds, to his surprise, that at times, he suddenly feels good. Remarkably, he states he has a voice of his own and then discovers and explores Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), the vocal verbal behavior in which the speaker (he himself) controls the behavior of the listener (also himself) with an appetitive stimulus. Instantaneously, he gains a sense of control and proudly declares he doesn’t need others to speak for him, because he can speak for himself, but only if he wants to. This positive self-talk, which needs to be further increased, is only possible however, because he is no longer busy with how others are hearing him.

Stated differently, he is no longer listening to himself as if he is listening to someone else. He is now listening to himself and recognizes that he is listening to himself, that is, he is conscious that he is listening to himself and that the speaker and the listener are one and the same person and that he is that one person. When he was not listening to himself, as he didn’t speak, he retreated non-verbally into listening, which was based on negative self-talk, which contrasted people who speak, as sounding good, with his own lack of speech, as sounding bad. Moreover, not only did others sound better, because they talked, they were supposedly smarter, which made him feel even dumber. 

Even though in this case the speaker and the listener are initially connecting because of NVB, this immediately switches to SVB. One could say that the way “in” was the same as the way “out,” that is, lack of self-listening created and maintained an imaginary split between the speaker and the listener, which gave rise to a self-defeating belief in an inner self. As self-listening is restored, due to a writing assignment which involves listening to oneself, the muted speaker comes back alive again, is acknowledged and validated. Suddenly, the student realizes it can go both ways, meaning, he seemingly sounds terrible as long as he is not saying anything, but he actually likes his own voice, when he again says something and attentively listens to it.

Once he is having the choice to be with or without a voice, he chooses to have his own voice, regardless of how it sounds. The happiness that he can finally speak out and listen to himself is more important than the fact that he didn’t like his voice. He is so happy to have a voice that he sounds good. Now he appreciates his voice even when it doesn’t sound good. He realizes that he can talk in spite of how he sounds. However, toward the end of his paper, his self-listening is replaced by other-listening. He no longer listens to himself, but worries about how he will be able to continue this with others. His positive experience stood in a stark contrast with his long-held negative way of viewing himself. He would need more reinforcement to be able to continue. Especially, he needs verbal instruction to listen to himself, so he can stop trying to sound like how he imagines others might like him to sound. He dislikes his sound because of instructions that were given. Depression is only one of the many problems of our belief in an inner self. 

Our common belief in a behavior-causing self is deeply problematic. It is because of NVB that this fiction can and will continue. SVB, by contrast, is the only solution. Stated differently, NVB elicits emotional discomfort, which cannot be disssolved by knowledge. As the depressed student described, NVB is against knowledge, as certain circumstances are necessary for knowledge to be obtained. Knowledge of the natural world can only be obtained when our sensory neurons evoke rather than elicit the neural behaviors involved in learning. SVB reinforces positive emotions. NVB reinforces, exploits and perpetuates negative emotions; we are made to feel bad about ourselves and we are doing whatever we can to avoid that. 

 

Although we may not suffer from depression like this student, we all suffer all sorts of other negative consequences from how we talk with each other. As the example makes clear, the most problematic aspect about our common way of talking is of course how this makes us talk with ourselves or rather, how this prevents us from talking with ourselves. Belief in an inner behavior-causing agent is maintained by NVB. Our covert negative private speech is caused and maintained by overt, negative public speech. The idea that, something can be done, therapeutically, about negative covert speech, is a mentalistic notion in which we remain oblivious of the fact that private speech is a function of public speech, which continues unabated as long as we don’t turn our attention to it.

Rather than merely dealing with symptoms, we should attend to the actual causes of our problems. If we were really doing that, we would be no longer interested in our individual problems, but with the way of interacting which has caused these problems in the first place. Whether it is the negative private speech of this student, the suicidality of the bipolar patient, the guardedness of the paranoid schizophrenic, the history of the abusive father or the need of the addicted mother, we would be dealing not with our individual problems, but with how we all communicate. Rather than making it into someone’s personal problem, we would realize that these are all effects of NVB and can only be solved by more SVB. The increase of SVB is not going to depend on only a couple of people. If it is going to increase it is because millions of people are going to recognize how important our way of talking with each other really is.