September 21, 2016

September 21, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

People say all sorts of things without realizing what they are saying. They talk about “bouncing ideas off of each other” or “brain-storming.”  We disconnect during the former and experience the latter as chaos.

We have never generated new ideas during Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), on the other hand, new ideas are stimulated as communicators enjoy each other instead of compete. 

In NVB we compete for each other’s attention. In NVB we are always listening to someone who dominates the conversation and regardless how much we complain, we don’t even realize what we are really doing. 

If listeners would recognize that the speaker is dominating, we would all speak differently, but the exact opposite happens. When listeners open their mouth they also mainly try to force others to listen to them. 

In NVB nobody realizes that our conversation is a struggle. This doesn’t mean that we don’t take note of the fact that we feel negative, we do, but this only strengthens our NVB and it doesn’t create SVB. 

Even if we try to have non-violent communication, we engage in NVB as we don’t discriminate the difference between SVB and NVB. There is no violent communication as violence makes communication impossible.

There is neither violent nor no non-violent communication, but there is definitely SVB and NVB. Communication only occurs in the absence of aversive stimulation. In such a safe environment SVB can and will occur.

We are conditioned by and mechanically imitating each other’s NVB. This prevents us from discovering, exploring and utilizing SVB. At best we experience instances of SVB, but these are overruled by our NVB.