June 8, 2016

June 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

I was exploring with a depressed client what he was thinking about his depression. As we were exploring his private speech, he discovered and acknowledged that he was continuously saying negative things to himself. 

After expressing and listening to his depressive thoughts, he suddenly blurted out: “the speaker does all the talking in my depression!” He had unknowingly constantly only been ‘listening’ to his own thoughts. 

By expressing his private speech in his public speech, he realized for the first time there was a difference between the speaker and the listener within him. He said: “the speaker keeps on speaking and speaking, but the listener doesn’t want to hear any of it.”

Thus, the listener began to speak to the speaker and tell the speaker that he didn’t like what the speaker was saying. While doing this the client realized that his inner dialogue could only be paid attention to by expressing it out loud and attentively listening to it.

The client had been unable to consciously take note of what he had been saying to himself covertly as long as his private speech was not expressed overtly into his public speech. By speaking out loud, he was at long last able to listen to what he had said to himself.

The client not only listened to what the speaker was saying, but he also listened to when the listener began to speak. By becoming a speaker, the listener regulated the speaker, who was finally able to become a listener.

The client experienced that a big shift occurred in his inner dialogue. He created peace between the speaker and the listener within himself. Furthermore, because the listener was able to now become the speaker, the speaker could become a listener. Stated differently, the speaker had now become a conscious speaker and the listener had now become a conscious listener.

As long as the client had not listened to what he had been thinking covertly, neither speaking nor listening was consciously experienced. It was only once he began talk out loud about his thoughts that SVB was possible as speaking and listening happen in the here and now.