August 14, 2014

August 14, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist 

Dear Reader,

Today this writer wishes to criticize the aberrant operant called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Someone has to open his or her mouth by saying something about this total distortion of our spoken communication, which has been going on since time memorial. It dismays this writer that applied behavior analysis has become the treatment of choice for problems of language development, but hasn’t aimed any of  its energy at improving our spoken communication and relationship. 

Behaviorists and behaviorologists have been dancing around the elephant in the room. How do we communicate? Do we actually communicate? What goes on in the name of human relationship? Can that be called communication? This author doesn't think so. Most of what we hear, are involved in and are conditioned by, is NVB. We don’t get along and we are unable to work out our differences. 

NVB has flourished while Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) has remained virtually unaddressed.  The  opening of one's mouth is a function of multiple causes. Our words may come from an experience of love and bonding, but they may just as well derive from fear or absence of respect. That we became literate in the language of our verbal community could have and, in the opinion of this writer, should have, resulted in SVB. The fact that it didn’t goes unnoticed. However, it didn’t because it couldn’t. If literacy could have resulted in SVB, it would have done so.  Literacy may set the stage for SVB or NVB. It has until now mostly resulted in NVB.

 

  

From a behaviorological perspective the ubiquity of NVB is nothing surprising. It is simply a function of our environment. Human beings act the way they do based on the contingencies that make their behavior possible. All of our conflicts are caused and can be explained, not by our beliefs, our politics, our inequalities, our races, our misunderstandings or our failure of communication, but by the variables in our environments, which set the stage for the perpetuation of tragedy and suffering. 

Certainly, the human condition continues to be caused by what we say, but, we will only be paying attention to the functional analysis of our verbal behavior when something in our environment stimulates us to investigate how we speak.  

  

The explanation of behavior in terms of a stimulus, which causes a response, is incomplete. The belief that some higher power created this world in seven days is flawed, not so much because of the lack of evidence that god exists, but because there is something causally wrong with this picture. Neither god nor any other entity could have caused anything. Also, we human beings don’t cause our own behavior.

Because we assume that we cause our own behavior, we believe that others, even our gods, cause their own behavior. Since Darwin, however, we have known about selection by consequences, but evolutionary theory is resisted everywhere to this very day. This resistance is not only based on the fact that there is no need for a creator, but on the principle of causation itself. We created our God's in our own image and we resist the science which tells us we don't cause our own behavior.

Skinner built his theory of operant conditioning on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Like species, behaviors are selected by environments. The implications of this finding are far-reaching. In terms of talking, it can simply be said that we can only talk in such a way, as we are allowed by our environments, that is, by those other people who make up our environment. Depending on our environments, on other people, certain experiences can be said or not, can be remembered or not, can be understood or not, can be accepted or not and can be overcome or not. 

     

It is certainly true, as Skinner has said, that a child’s vocal response, which makes it say A or B, is not a reflexive behavior, like salivating to an orange. The sounds that a child makes are differentially reinforced by members of his or her verbal community. Salivation to an orange is an example of stimulus-response or respondent conditioning. Saying A or B, after reinforcement, is an example of response-stimulus or operant conditioning. Thus, Pavlov’s work was linked to  Darwin’s work and is included in and explained by Skinner’s work. 

Consequences of behavior determine whether that behavior is more likely to occur in the future or not. They call it operant behavior, because the response, the behavior, operates on the environment and the stimulus that was present when this behavior occurred, is likely to make this behavior occur more often in the future, if it is again present in the environment. Although no child was born to say A or B reflexively, it can be conditioned to do so. The reason most people accept NVB as normal, is because they have heard it since they were born. Their potential of becoming fully verbal has been hindered by NVB, but it couldn’t be stopped. 

After writing the aforementioned, this writer was reminded of the great paper “The Psyche As Behavior” (2013), which was written by his dear friend from Colombia, Arturo Clavijo. This paper elaborates on how the concept of behavior has changed and continues to change. It traces how different behaviorists through the years, based on their extensions, interpret what they have observed. They all stick to observable, measurable behaviors. Watson based his work on Pavlov, who based his work on Darwin and Skinner based his work on them. Thus, we can see the progression from the S-R psychology of Watson to the R-S molecular psychology of Skinner, which then gave rise to the molar perspective of Baum. All of this work was and continues to be a response to contingencies that were and that are controlling it. 

The categories of SVB and NVB are an additional conceptual improvement, which allow scientists to have inclusive, more productive discussions about the giants on whose shoulders we stand. For the temporal pattern of behavior, the molar perspective, choice is fundamental, because the nature of one particular activity is explained by availability or absence of other activities. Herrnstein’s (1961) matching law, which states that the rate of responding tends to match the reinforcement rate, also applies to the presence or the absence of SVB and NVB. 

When there can be SVB, when SVB is reinforced, it will occur and when there can be NVB, when NVB is reinforced, it too will appear. We switch back and forth between SVB and NVB from one moment to the next, because the contingencies of spoken communication are more fluid than those which pertain to written words. Another way of saying this is that there is more emotional involvement in our spoken communication than in our written communication, especially since feelings are better expressed in how we sound than in what we say with written words. 

Our environment immediately acts on how we speak and listen and how we speak and listen determines what we say and can say. In safe environments we learn the components of SVB and we find over time that these components can be chained together. In unsafe environments, however, we learn elements of NVB, which also over time are pieced together into stable NVB patterns of behavior. The molar perspective, which the molecular and the S-R behaviorists are not interested in, explains the selection of patterns of responses, which become SVB and NVB.

August 13, 2014

August 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Skinnner has gotten us started on Verbal Behavior (1957). He urged behaviorists to use his work only as a beginning, but he by no means claimed to have said the final word. He reasoned that the mediator [the listener] provides the conditions that make clear the conduct of the verbalizer [the speaker]. Moreover, to accomplish a complete description of our verbal behavior, he insisted on the distinct, yet perfectly dovetailing explanation of the behaviors of both the verbalizer and the mediator. 

Obviously, the mediator doesn’t and can't reinforce all the behaviors of the verbalizer. He or she will only reinforce certain instances of verbal behavior. Most certainly the sounds which will be reinforced, are those sounds which pertain to the language that is spoken by the verbal community. Thus, Arabic vocalizers will not be reinforced by English mediators. The same language implies similar sounds. 

When we analyze speaking and listening behavior in terms of producing and observing (listening to) the sounds of our negative and our positive emotions, we find that within each language there exist two distinct languages:  Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  

In Verbal Behavior Skinner accounted for the behavior of the speaker. Accounting for the behavior of the mediator is the goal of SVB. In doing so, we must take into consideration the sound that is produced by the verbalizer, which can be described as the reverberation of his or her environment, that is, the language of his or her verbal community. Skinner (1957) said that a child learns verbal behavior due to the reinforcement of “relatively unpatterned vocalizations” which “gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal community.” 

When we consider the verbalizer's expression of positive and negative emotions as “patterned vocalizations”, we must conclude that the mediator, who reinforces the behavior of the verbalizer, in addition to learning his or her native language, also acquires this pattern of vocalizations, which is considered the proper expression of emotion within his or her verbal community. However, if one keeps focusing on the content, one may overlook the nonverbal stimuli that are always occurring prior to and together with our verbal behavior.

August 12, 2014

August 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Even after 25 years of talking about it, practicing it and researching it, I am still hesitant to say that I have discovered something, which, to my knowledge, was not discovered by anyone else. The first couple of years after discovering it, I was hardly able to believe that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) really was something. Many years went by in which I was mainly trying to prove to myself that it truly was something. Then, many more years went by in which I felt very lonely with my discovery. I knew I had found something, but I was unable to share it, because I was too busy studying for my Ph.D. in Psychology. It was very strange to have reached the point of candidacy, but not to find any academic capable of sharing any interest in my finding, which was reinforced by my clinical experience.

After I had withdrawn from the program, I came back to Chico, where I began to teach myself behaviorism and recently I began studying behaviorology. I now consider myself a behaviorologist, because I see myself as a scientist of verbal behavior. What I have discovered is a natural process, which has been replicated numerous times with the many individuals who have experimented with SVB. 

Tonight I talked with a lady who is the head of the local market. It was wonderful to bring SVB to her. I no longer have any false hopes about it, like I did when I first found it. The lady cried when she realized that she had found what she had been missing and looking for. It felt great just to give it to her with no expectation.

In the past, I wanted to make money with it, but that was just a stand in the way. Because of my knowledge about conditioning, I no longer see myself as a therapist and I have lost all interest in therapy. This has freed me up. I do my own thing. I have my income from being a case-manager and a college instructor, but I don’t feel that I have to make money with SVB, although it would of course be great if I could. However, SVB enriches me beautifully these days and I have not benefitted from it and enjoyed it as much as I currently do. Many things are going in the right direction and my successes are accumulating week by week. My conversation with this lady fulfilled her need and I felt so good about being able to do that for her. She was very grateful and totally acknowledging the validity of my work. 

August 11, 2014

August 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

How do I measure Sound Verbal Behavior ? When I am involved in a conversation, my attention always goes to whether we have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Apparently, I only want to have SVB and that is why I notice whenever I am not having it. NVB bothers me and SVB pleases me, therefore, I avoid NVB and I try to create and maintain SVB. 

Whether two people (or more) have SVB, can be observed and measured. One sees a similarity in their body language. When one hears what they are talking about it is clear that they agree with each other and understand each other. Furthermore, they enjoy talking with each other, which is apparent by their smiles and their friendly gestures. Another aspect of SVB are the pauses that appear between the words that are spoken. This creates room for words to be more carefully chosen, to be spoken more calmly, to be attentively listened to and to make sense. Also, in SVB, our facial expressions are peaceful and relaxed. Futhermore, in SVB, our bodies move in a graceful manner, because we embody our way of communicating. 

When people engage in SVB, they always do so consciously. They know they experience positive emotions endovironmentally, outside the skin, which are emphasized and reinforced by how they speak ectovironmentally, inside the skin. Although they talk about a variety of issues, the attention of the communicators is  drawn to how they speak, to endostimuli. This verification and maintenance process is stimulated because SVB, speakers listen to themselves while they speak. 

In SVB, self-listening always comes before listening to others. Listening to others is improved and enhanced due to self-listening. Moreover, communicators agree that mandatory other-listening, a symptom of NVB, excludes self-listening, but that voluntary self-listening includes other-listening. 

In SVB, all communicators agree with each other that they sound good. If, for whatever reason, one of the communicators has the impression that someone doesn’t sound good, this is always discussed until the sound that was made by that person is agreed by everyone to sound good again. Whenever this inevitable adjustment has been made everyone agrees that this benefits the conversation.

The sounds of the voices of those who engage in SVB are easy to listen to and consequently, what is said is easily understood. The listener’s well-being is enhanced by the speaker because the voice of the speaker represents his or her well-being. Whether someone’s voice represents one’s well-being is not merely a subjective experience, to the contrary, everyone agrees whether a person expresses his or her well-being or not. Another way of saying this is that we agree nonverbally. This nonverbal agreement makes our verbal agreement possible. 

Two people walking next to each other in the park, while having a conversation, move into the same direction and, non-verbally agree with each other. Nonverbal agreement in SVB is because all the communicators find and remain tuned into the sound of their own well-being. We have already experience moments of SVB accidentally, but we have not done it deliberately, skillfully and consistently.

There is an obvious relationship between how we sound and how we feel. When we feel stressed, agitated, depressed, we sound that way, but when we feel happy, peaceful and relaxed, we sound accordingly. We don’ t try to sound a particular kind of way in SVB, but we just sound good while we feel good. In NVB, by contrast, people try to sound happy, confident or in control, while what they feel is not how they sound. In SVB there is congruence between what we say and how we say it, but in NVB there is a disconnect between the verbal and the nonverbal. 

In SVB communicators feel that they are each other’s environment. That is, they share one and the same environment. In NVB, by contrast, people have the notion that they live in different worlds. All of this is made worse by by the common superstition that we cause our own behavior and possess a behavior-causing self.

  

In SVB, because communicators reciprocate each other’s positive emotions, there is no need to keep private speech out of public speech and thus, public speech is enriched by the genuineness of our private speech. In NVB, however, where private speech is excluded from public speech, people get privately stuck with their unexpressed negative emotions, because, although they may blame and accuse others, they still think and believe that they are responsible for their own behavior. 

SVB can be done with others, but it can also be done while one is alone. Moreover, doing it with others is enhanced by doing it alone. One can talk with oneself out loud and one can listen to one’s own voice and one can adjust until one likes what one hears. The process of listening to oneself is easier to be explored by oneself than while being with others. Others usually distract us from listening to ourselves. 

Only when people have SVB do they stimulate each other to listen to themselves. When people are engaged in SVB, they can let each other be and they can leave each other alone. This is very important. Most of our spoken communication is NVB, because people incessantly interfere with each other by how they speak. In SVB, people are clear about what they feel, because the attention of the listener helps the speaker to clarify what he or she feels. Thus, in SVB people become clear about both their positive and their negative emotions. In SVB they can talk about their negative emotion because they experience positive emotion, but in NVB they can’t talk about negative emotion, because there Is no attention for how they feel. 

SVB is a listener’s perspective of our spoken communication. When people achieve SVB we see typical listening behavior: people come closer to each other and look each other in the eyes. People engaging in SVB have meaningful conversation which is experienced as energizing. The nonverbal behavior of communicators signifies their excitement, involvement and joyful energy. Even though speakers may get very animated, they maintain a sensitivity to each other, which evokes spontaneity. 

By one self, one hears one’s sound and realizes that one can only feel good about one’s voice, if speaking and listening happen at the same time. As long as one doesn’t feel good about one’s sound, one hasn’t yet synchronized one’s speaking and one’s listening behavior. One needs to continue experimenting until one knows that one has found it. Once one finds SVB, one knows  one has found it, because when one produces it, one’s body responds with a sense of relaxation and a feeling of rejuvenation. Listening to one’s own voice has a restorative effect on one’s body and on one’s private speech. As long as one is still trying to sound good, which is bound to happen, one notices that the content of one’s private speech, which is made public, is negative: one let’s oneself know that one doubts, unsure, anxious or upset, one feels restless or without any energy. One must listen to the sound of one’s NVB.

When the communicator is alone and is listening to him or herself, he or she is more likely to admit and say what is wrong, what doesn’t feel good, what is frustrating and frightening, what is painful and humiliating. He or she needs to listen to the sound of these expressions. He or she will continue to produce NVB as long as he or she is not really listening to him or herself, but once he or she hears him or herself, he or she will know that he or she is producing SVB... all by him or by herself. 

Too much speaking can mask the fact that listening is happening at a much lower rate than speaking. The opposite can also happen that we listen too much and that we speak too little. If we speak too little, is not possible for us to learn how to listen while we speak. We have to speak in order to learn to listen while we speak. Our rates of speaking and listening can be off from one moment to the next. To have SVB, we sometimes need to speak more and sometimes we need to speak less, sometimes we need to listen more and sometimes we shouldn’t be busy with listening at all and  say whatever comes to our ‘mind’. Adjusting our speaking to our listening and our listening to our speaking creates SVB. 

In NVB our listening and speaking are out of whack. We measure with our body whether we are too close to the fire and we move away when it gets too hot. Likewise, we measure with our body whether we have NVB and whether we need to move away from it and perhaps even stay away from it for good. Since we often cannot express what we are feeling during the circumstances that we find ourselves in, we must at some point catch up again with our private speech, which is a function of the public speech we have endured and survived.  When we sit by ourselves and tell ourselves what we have gone through, when we really listen to our own story as we experience it and want to express it, as we become capable of expressing it, as we understand it and as we are capable of understanding it, we will find words for experiences which have remained unexpressed and misunderstood and which are troubling us. Once we express, in our own pace and rhythm what is the matter with us, we experience a release of the burden and stress that was ‘carried’ on by us in our private speech.  

After finding peace, by listening to our own voice, we can now let ourselves be guided by what sounds good to us. We then begin to act on what we believe and we measure the consequences by what happens in our lives. Once we know that we can have SVB, we want to have it because we have experienced the contrast with NVB. This contrast was missing. Nobody could point it out to us and we had to point it out to ourselves, while we were alone speaking out loud and listening to ourselves. 

In SVB, we listen to others in the same way that we listen to ourselves. In NVB, however, we listen more to others than that we listen to ourselves. When we attempt to listen to ourselves in NVB, we experience a difference between the speaker and the listener. This is because our speaking and our listening behaviors were separately conditioned and therefore began to occur at different rates and intensity levels. In SVB, our listening and speaking behaviors are joined. SVB is a behavioral cusp, which opens us up to new environments and makes new reinforcements available.

August 10, 2014

August 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It is a total scandal that we have already known since the 1960s how to successfully treat people with so-called mental illnesses behaviorologically, but that because of the political, ideological biomedical model, we stuff them with psychotropic drugs, whose benefits are minimal to none-existent. Behaviorological research from back in the days proves unequivocally that changing environmental contingencies will significantly improve the behavior of those who are presumably mentally ill.

Mental health as it is practiced in the United States in 2014 is a racket. To call people who are suffering the consequences of the circumstances which they have endured and survived, mentally ill is not only stigmatizing, it is unethical, unscientific and  unprofessional. This writer, who has studied psychology and has worked in the field for more than 10 years, has first-hand experience of the lack of knowledge about operant conditioning, which turns people into obedient foot-soldiers for big pharma. The medicalization of our social problems is based on ignorance.

There is currently an outbreak of Ebola virus in Africa. As with AIDS, no superstition is going to do anybody any good. This real disease is only going to be stopped by understanding how it really works and spreads and by taking the scientific measures to prevent further contamination. 

Mental illness is not an illness. Diagnoses, which are used to classify them, which presumably lead to appropriate treatment, are decided by closed-door deliberations between medical professionals, psychiatrists, who have no background whatsoever, in behaviorology. People, in charge of the mental health services, are medical doctors, who pretend to treat problems that really do exist, but don’t go away, because they have no clue about the natural science of human behavior. The low levels of reliability and validity of their diagnoses go unchecked, because no one has the power to debunk their socially constructed nonsense.  

Just as nobody knows about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), this writer thinks that many people would like to have it, if only they knew how to have it. We throw rotten fruit away and we eat fresh fruit if we can. Likewise, we like to have happy relationships, but since we don’t know how to have them, we can't have them. It is may be hard to admit, but we continue to have many troubled relationships, because our communication creates and maintains all of this. It is called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), because it maintains behaviors which have aversive consequences. 

No matter how bad it is, we are stuck with what we have, until we know how to have something better. Mental health patients will enable the so-called mental health providers until they know how to permanently step out of this abusive cycle of exploitation.