October 19, 2015

October 19, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader, 

From today on I am going to directly address you. Since you are the one who is reading this, you are probably the one who is willing to listen to me. I have been directing much writing to people who most unlikely are not willing to listen to me. Why should I keep wasting my time? I turn to you and would like to talk with you. My way of talking is different than the talking you are familiar with. I guarantee you will agree with me. I teach Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). This is very different from the way of talking which you are used to: Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

It is liberating for me to write to you. I know you have also suffered and I am happy that we have found each other and we can acknowledge our suffering. Nobody comes to SVB without first acknowledging how much suffering was created by NVB. Those who are unwilling or unable to acknowledge the devastating effects of our presumably ‘normal’ way of communicating haven’t suffered enough to want SVB. It is because we can avoid this suffering that we long to have SVB. In other words, SVB is negatively reinforced as it teaches to avoid aversive stimulation. 

The difference between SVB and NVB is simple; in the former we really talk with each other, but in the latter we only pretend to talk with each other. In spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, we continue to believe that NVB is communication as we aren’t often enough in the situation in which we can calmly detect the great difference between SVB and NVB. Fact is, however, that we have all been in such situations. 

Although we experience a lot of negativity and stress, it is absolutely unavoidable that at some point we are relaxed and at ease again. Our inability to achieve this would be our decline and to the extent that we are unable to achieve this we are rapidly declining. However, we cannot pretend to be without negativity and stress. No matter how much we are capable of faking our comfort, our ‘comfort zones’ prevent us from really understanding what stops us from being peaceful and at ease. 

Analysis of how we talk with each other is the last thing on our agenda. Actually, it isn’t even on anyone’s agenda. No academic authority insists that we should have a different way of talking and that this will change everything. Those who have done so have failed. Their failure didn’t inspire anyone to explore what they apparently hadn’t yet explored. They failed as at some point their exploration stopped. People have tried to escape their communication problems, but they have yet to learn how to avoid them altogether. We dread the problems that we cannot solve. Enduring situations of inescapable aversive stimulation result in pathological behavior. 

Mankind’s biggest problem continues to be a communication problem. How are we ever going to overcome this if we keep on failing? SVB is the solution as it addresses this matter. In SVB the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. This way of talking is different from NVB, in which the speaker doesn’t listen to him or herself while he or she speaks. In most of our communication speakers don’t hear themselves speak and that is why I call most of our communication NVB. In NVB the speaker’s voice is a noxious stimulus to the listener as the NVB speaker doesn’t listen to him or herself. When we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak we begin to sound terrible. We can only recognize that we have SVB when our voices sound better again. We sound better when we are calm, happy, safe and conscious. 

During NVB there is stress, anxiety, distrust, fear and anger. The tone of the speaker’s voice induces negative affect in the listener in NVB, but in SVB it induces positive affect. You cannot do both at once, you either do one or the other. If you have SVB, you stop having NVB and if you have NVB, you stop having SVB. In other words, we can go back and forth between SVB and NVB very quickly, although we usually don’t. If we would go back and forth between SVB and NVB, we would be better capable of achieving and maintaining SVB, but since we don’t go back and forth that often, we remain most of the time stuck with our NVB. 

The switch between SVB and NVB is so dramatic that it can’t be missed. We can’t achieve, let alone maintain SVB without going back and forth and that is why we settle for NVB. Yet, we can all hear the difference between a SVB and a NVB speaker. Although we can hear and notice that the speaker induces negative feelings in us, we accept this as we can’t do anything about it. In NVB the speaker is hierarchically above the listener. The speaker may be our boss, teacher, preacher, wife, husband or anyone who is dominating us and is allowed to get away with it. Therefore, NVB is the communication which occurs between the oppressor and the oppressed, but both parties maintain it.  

In SVB there is no oppressor and there are no oppressed. Both SVB as well as NVB are maintained by the speaker and the listener. As most people have no understanding about behaviorism they continue to believe that they are causing their own behavior or that others are  causing their own behavior. This belief makes our interaction unreal. When we have SVB, we are aware that we are creating and maintaining it together, but when we are engaged in NVB, we believe some inner agent or self is causing it. It doesn’t matter whether this inner agent is in someone else or that we believe to be causing our own behavior.