October 21, 2015

October 21, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader, 

It was because of my dear Dutch friend Bart Bruins, who was the first behaviorist to acknowledge that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is a valid and important new behaviorist construct, that I have started to write to a different audience. A tremendous shift has happened now that I am writing to those who listen to me and speak with me. I came up with the title for a book: Sound Verbal Behaviorism. Unlike the behaviorism with which only few became familiar, this is a behaviorism with which we can all get involved. SVB can be understood by everyone. Besides, we already know it. We have had it every time we were with friends, every time we were feeling support, respect, openness and kindness. SVB is the communication which only happens when we are at peace. 

We sound different when we have negative or positive emotions. We talk differently when we fight and compete or when we enjoy and harmonize. We don’t really talk when we are in conflict with each other. Also, we can’t talk when we are in conflict with ourselves. Rather than separating the speaker from the listener, which always occurs in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we need to separate SVB from NVB. It is stupid to accept NVB as communication. NVB is not communication as we are dominating, intimidating, exploiting, manipulating and forcing each other. Only SVB is communication as in SVB we are not aversively stimulating each other. Stated differently, during SVB we embody and experience and therefore only express and stimulate positive emotions. 

To be listened to is one thing, but to be speaking is quite another. Most of the speaking in NVB is done by very few speakers. In SVB, however, there are many speakers. It is always in reference to NVB that it is often said that everything has already been said. NVB is repetitive and boring, but SVB is alive and interesting. NVB is the absence of communication, while SVB is the presence of communication. As we mistakenly accept NVB as a form of communication, we miss out on SVB. To have SVB we must speak and listen simultaneously. In NVB, by contrast, we speak more than we listen or we listen more than that we speak. In either case, our speaking and listening behavior is disjointed. In SVB speaking and listing behavior is and remains joined. It doesn’t get joined to be disjointed again. It becomes joined to stay joined. When SVB occurs, we realize what we have missed and this creates the motivation to find it back when it is gone again. People have looked for SVB in all the wrong places. Our thirst for peace can only quenched by our interactions with one another. When speaking and listening happen at the same rate this means that the speaker and the listener are on equal footing. 

Due to the ubiquity of NVB, we were led to believe that there is a problem with listening. However, the problem is not with listening. The problem lies in different rates of speaking and listening. These different rates are maintained by the fact that only a few people do the talking. The rates of speaking and listening equalize when more people will speak. Yet, speaking is only going be SVB if these speakers are going to listen to themselves while they speak. NVB speakers create more NVB; only SVB can create more SVB. As SVB increases, NVB is going to decrease. However, SVB speakers are never going decrease NVB speakers. SVB speakers will avoid NVB speakers as much as possible. SVB and NVB are incompatible. NVB speakers will only be speaking with NVB speakers.  

SVB speakers will only be speaking with SVB speakers. Of course, nobody is really a SVB or a NVB speaker. We speak in a particular way because of the circumstances that we have been in and because of the circumstances that we are currently in. For instance, we speak English as we have learned to speak it in an English verbal community and as we find ourselves in an English-speaking environment. If we were in Mexican family, we would perhaps speak Spanish, even though we are currently living in an English-speaking environment. In other words, our history and our current situation determines our behavior. No matter how much we have been conditioned by negative, stressful, violent or abusive circumstances, we still have the tendency to want peace. And, no matter how conditioned we are by NVB, we still want SVB. Although, due to our different behavioral histories, with for some SVB it is more possible than with others, SVB is possible with everyone. It may take some more time, but as more time is spend with these individuals they begin to respond, no matter how presumably mentally ill, demented or indoctrinated they are. These results are predictable and measurable. 

Our individual rates of SVB and NVB behavior tell us more about the circumstances that we have been in than about the circumstances we are currently in. This is such an important point to be understood. We tend to judge others by how they behave. We are inclined to think that they are that way as they behave that way, but this is not true. People behave the way they do due to how others have treated them in their  previous environments. A person’s ‘response-ability’ is determined by his or her environment and not by some imaginary agent inside of that person. SVB will once and for all make clear to us that we are not and we could not be responsible for our own behavior. The more we have  believed that we are responsible for our own behavior, the more of a mess we have created in our lives.