October 8, 2016

October 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

What do we mean when we say someone was getting on our nerves or under our skin? Something positive happening inside of us was changed by someone who was negative, but who was outside and perhaps all over us. Presumably we can prevent people from getting on our nerves by getting a thicker skin. Although we talk about change which is only skin-deep, we believe we can change negativity into positivity inside of us, which then protects us from negative people who are outside of us.

As we develop our so-called firmer boundaries, no one messes with our brain anymore and as we become less affected by the situation, that is, by others and we believe we have become more confident. Therapists teach mental health clients every day they can’t control the behavior of others, but they can control their own. It is this common line of thinking, which erroneously changes external causes into internal causes of behavior, which doesn’t and can’t result into improvement.

No matter what we end up believing, our behavior isn’t caused by internal stimuli. Our belief in an inner behavior-causing agent has continued as we haven’t acknowledged the event that changed external into internal causation. I am referring to our common way of talking which I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). During NVB the speaker makes the listener responsible for how he or she impacts him or her. Basically, in NVB the speaker forces the listener to become an enabler.

The fact that the speaker either has a positive or a negative effect on the listener is not caused by the listener. However, this only becomes clear if we adhere to the science of human behavior, which teaches us that behavior is selected by the circumstances we are in. Therapists who are able to provide the kind of verbal support, which stimulates improvement in the mental health condition of their clients, point out to them that their way of talking, which immediately and positively impacts their clients, results into the client’s behavioral changes.

The environment, that is, the therapist shapes the behavior of client. In other words, therapy is based on the scientific finding that we can change the behavior of others. As clients become aware about how other people maintain their behaviors, they realize that the previous instructions aimed at changing the environment within their own skin, could never result into the outcomes they were promised by them.

Especially clients who have had a lot of therapy and therapists often report the discouraging experience that nothing has really worked for them. Those who are most vocal about their legitimate frustrations are individuals with bipolar disorder, but many people with other diagnoses express a similar sense of despair. The rage, described as a symptom, in reality is a person’s response to how he or she feels mistreated.

Each time a mental health client is told that he or she has the power to change him or herself he or she is set up for failure. As these failures accumulate they feel betrayed. They have tried and tried, but their treatment simply didn’t work. My clients are stimulated to discriminate Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). This treatment works and they proudly express their incremental progress.

Once clients are able to recognize SVB and NVB, they acknowledge the extent to which their symptoms are decreased by individuals in their environment who produce SVB, but are increased by individuals who produce NVB. By identifying these two kinds of influences they are eventually able to stay away and withdraw from NVB and approach SVB.  By focusing their attention on the environment that is outside of their skin they begin to improve; in different environments they can thrive.