January 8, 2018

Dear Reader,

I went through an arduous process before I became capable of writing and speaking about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in its current form. When I first discovered it, I didn’t know anything about radical behaviorism. I believed, like everyone else, that I was causing my own behavior. I thought I was responsible for producing SVB. Although I longed to engage in it, I kept getting involved in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as I had no idea that it was my environment which caused me to engage either in SVB or in NVB.

For a long time, I felt burdened knowing that SVB was possible and beneficial, but my knowledge about it was totally inaccurate. It wasn’t until I learned about operant conditioning, which is explained by the three-term contingency: Stimulus, Response and Consequence, that I became aware of environmental antecendent stimuli, which either set the stage for SVB or NVB, the response, which is then followed by postcedents or consequences, which will then make SVB or NVB more or less likely to occur in the future.

We must acquire basic scientific understanding about how our behavior is determined, not by us, as some behavior-causing agent, but by consequences which follow our behavior. Behaviors which occur at a high response rate are behaviors that are reinforced. If we often engage in NVB, we must be in environments in which this behavior is reinforced, but, if SVB occurs at a low response rate, we must be in environments in which this behavior is not very often reinforced.

This contingency-based way of thinking makes it easy for us to learn to have more SVB and less NVB. We engage in SVB or in NVB as we find ourselves in the environments in which one or the other is reinforced. This means there is no need at all to try to have SVB. If we are having SVB together, this simply means that we are somehow reinforcing it, but if we keep having NVB, it means that we are together reinforcing NVB. We will reliably acquire novel or more effective behavior and decrease any ineffective or unwanted behavior, as our behavior is being reinforced or not.

I don’t think we need to learn how to reinforce SVB or how to not reinforce NVB. We need to take note of when we are engaging in SVB or in NVB as this is when we are reinforcing one or the other. We will be effortlessly able to have more SVB, once we reinforce it. Currently we don’t reinforce it. As we realize how different it is to reinforce NVB or SVB, we will change our environment. As we witness the great difference between SVB and NVB, we will reinforce only SVB.
 
Dear Reader,

You can only come to know about the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) by learning about it from me or from someone who has learned it from me. I know it sounds preposterous to say that I know something which nobody knows, but once you talk with me I guarantee that you will agree it is true. You can only learn about SVB by fully acknowledging, admitting and accepting that you don’t know anything about it.

Learning about SVB always starts with not knowing. You will not be able to understand it immediately, but you can experience it without understanding it. I know that you insist on understanding it and that if you can’t understand it, you will not consider it, but I urge you to experience without understanding it. You will understand it only after you have experienced it. This is how SVB, genuine human interaction, works. I am not saying that understanding is not important, but this understanding comes out of your experience.

If there had really been someone who you could totally trust, who knew exactly how to stimulate you so that you would reliably experience SVB, who was capable of pointing out to you that knowing about SVB is secondary to experiencing it, you would be having SVB already. Fact is, however, such a person was never there. It is very hard for us to acknowledge that this is actually the case: nobody knew about SVB!

We have learned some bits and pieces of SVB and we may occasionally have experienced fleeting moments of it, but we never had it continuously, deliberately and skillfully. Those who have taught us about how to communicate didn’t know anything about SVB. So, we have never for any extended period of time been exposed to someone who could teach us about SVB. Such reinforcing exposure is absolutely necessary.

SVB is not a course in miracles. Those who believe in causation of behavior by a divine entity are equally unfit to learn about SVB as those who adhere to the myth of a behavior-causation inner self. The laws of human behavior don’t depend on your superstitions. SVB is simply a skill which will only be acquired if it is reinforced by someone who knows how to do that. Right now you are mainly reinforced for having NVB. Consequently, your NVB happens at a high response rate. SVB happens at such a low response rate as it is seldom reinforced. Once we know this we can take the drama out of many of our problems and conflicts.