October 15, 2016

October 15, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It is in the middle of the night and I am sitting on the floor with my legs crossed. Kayla our cat sits next to me on her pillow and Bonnie my wife is asleep. I woke up at 2:30am. It was a busy day yesterday, but now it is quiet. I like to think and write about my distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

Certain things can only be said about this distinction if one, like me, explores what one is saying to one self. Private speech happens silently; it is only available to us individually. However, this private speech can be made public. In SVB, we make our private speech public. This is not possible in NVB. In NVB we try in vain to keep our private speech out of our public speech. It cannot be done, but we pretend to be doing it.

We make it seem as if how we speak with others has nothing to do with how we speak with ourselves. In SVB, we find out that, although how we speak with ourselves is caused by how others have spoken with us, how we speak with others is related to how we talk with ourselves.

There is nothing circular or mysterious about these links of causation. We can only really talk with ourselves and be in contact with ourselves to the extent that others have really talked with us. Our ability to talk with ourselves is diminished if we can’t talk with others and this will only further increase our isolation, loneliness, confusion and despair.

When in NVB our public and private speech are kept separate, speakers and listeners are also separated. In NVB, we don’t talk with each other, but we talk at each other. All our problems are created and maintained by NVB. Without SVB we cannot address let alone solve our problems.