November 21, 2015

November 21, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

As already stated, in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the speaker often prevents the listener, that is, the other person, from becoming a speaker. The ubiquity of NVB is based on the fact that only a few speakers do all the talking. In NVB the speaker is not listening to him or herself. He or she cannot do this as  nothing in his or her environment is stimulating him or her to do this. Therefore, NVB happens in the absence of stimuli which would make SVB possible. If such stimuli were present or made available, instances of SVB would occur. Obviously, producing such stimuli can only occur due to a behavioral history of SVB. Most people, however, have very little SVB in their history.

There couldn’t be much history of instances of SVB because the distinction between SVB and NVB has never been made. Although people have tried to get along and succeeded to some extent, this has not led to a learning process in which SVB was taught. Modern people, who rely on medications to cure diseases, are no longer involved in the fictional explanations, which were once believed to cause the disease. Their way of talking has changed because of scientific explanations. NVB is a pre-scientific way, but SVB is a scientific way of communicating. The separation between the listener and the speaker is absolutely false and the fact that so much of our spoken communication is based on this just shows how problematic most of our spoken communication is.

Low rates of SVB are caused by a lack of speakers. When speakers compete with other speakers they will produce NVB. SVB didn’t and couldn’t be increased in that way. During SVB speakers are no longer competing with other speakers. To the contrary, they mutually reinforce each other. In NVB speaking is basically kept to a minimum. In SVB, on the other hand, there is a tremendous increase in speaking because we are listening to ourselves and therefore to each other. In NVB we don’t listen to ourselves and therefore we can’t listen to each other. Self-listening includes other-listening, but other-listening excludes self-listening. To stimulate more self-listening, more speaking is necessary, but not the kind of speaking we are used to. NVB couldn’t stimulate us to listen to ourselves, because we were not allowed to speak; our private speech, that is, what we could only say and think to ourselves, was no longer considered to be part of public speech.

November 20, 2015

November 20, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) the speaker experiences him or herself as a listener and the listener experiences him or herself simultaneously as a speaker. Since we are already familiar with high rates of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we are used to the separation of the speaker from the listener. Consequently, only a few people, who are presumably experts or authorities, do most of the talking, while most of us, although we may also do some of the talking, remain mainly listeners. To increase the rates of SVB these listeners must become speakers. 

Instead of trying to stop NVB speakers, which makes any speaker into a NVB speaker, we need to avoid listening to NVB speakers and start listening to SVB speakers. As long as we keep engaging in NVB, we keep separating the speaker from the listener and we cannot achieve any kind of unity. In SVB we truly speak with one voice, which represents our well-being. When in SVB each speaker listens to him or herself, while he or she speaks, we stimulate each other’s wellbeing while we talk. In SVB we co-regulate each other, but in NVB we dis-regulate each other. Indeed in NVB, the speaker prevents the listener from becoming a speaker. In SVB, on the other hand, the speaker stimulates the speaker to become a speaker and the listener stimulates the speaker to become a listener. These are natural, audible and noticeable processes. 

It is often stated by so-called experts that there is a lack of listening, but that is not the problem. The problem is: there is too much listening and too little talking. We can only hear ourselves when we talk and we are not used to listening to ourselves while we speak as we don’t talk enough to be able to pay attention to this important phenomenon. Moreover, in most of our conversations we are not stimulated to listen to ourselves. Our best chance to listen to ourselves while we speak is when we are alone and take time to talk out loud. Only this convinces us it is possible and necessary to speak and listen simultaneously. We have already done it, but to increase our SVB with others we must first talk with ourselves. Our tendency to listen to others or to make others listen to us has kept us outward oriented, verbally fixated and struggling for attention. Most importantly, it has prevented us from speaking with the sound that makes us feel good. We can only hear that sound while we produce it.

November 19, 2015

November 19, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Although, obviously, the speaker and the listener are one within each person, you will very often not be able to experience this oneness. Your private speech, that is, what the speaker says to the listener within his or her own skin, is conflicted due to your public speech. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) private is speech that is caused by NVB public speech. When you talk out loud with yourself, you make your private speech public again. You could not do this during the NVB public speech which led to the NVB private speech. In NVB public speech you separate the listener from the speaker and, subsequently, you separate your private speech from your public speech. When you talk with your self you immediately experience that this separation was false. 

The separation between public and private speech was only there because of NVB public speech. When you talk out loud by with yourself, you effortlessly attain SVB again as there is in reality no separation between speaker and listener. That separation occurs because while talking with others we lose track of this oneness. Since we are used to NVB, we are used to experiencing the separation between listener and speaker. Since we only have had brief moments of SVB, we don’t experience the continuation of the speaker as one with the listener while we talk. If we would experience that oneness within ourselves while we talk with others more often, we would that find this oneness within ourselves will also make us feel one with whom we talk. In other words, when speaker and listener are experienced by the speaker as one within him or herself, then the speaker and the listener who is not the speaker are also experienced as one. In SVB the speaker and the listener outside of each other’s skin are experienced as one. This oneness is neither caused by the speaker nor by the listener, but by both simultaneously. Neither the speaker nor the listener is causing his or her own behavior.

Since speaking and listening happen simultaneously, they become joined. Thus, in SVB, by joining your speaking and listening behavior, the speaker and the listener within the skin of the speaker and outside the skin of the speaker become joined. All SVB communicators experience oneness and effortless agreement with each other. This agreement is based on the unity of the speaker and the listener. Speakers are not only ‘sending’ and listeners are not only ‘receiving’ as speakers are listeners and listeners are also speakers. The latter is where most of the work has to be done: SVB makes SVB speakers out of listeners.    

November 18, 2015

November 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

It is so incredibly satisfying to have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Even if you are engaging in SVB just by yourself you will realize the benefits. At some point SVB will increase and there is nothing you do to make this happen. It can and will increase as you finally understand that you are not causing it. This is, in my view, one of the most important aspects of behaviorism: that you don’t cause your own behavior. As long as you think you cause your own behavior you will be in trouble. However, as long as you still believe in some esoteric explanation of why you act the way you act, instead of how your behavior is shaped by your environment, you will have no reality to your life whatsoever.

Stated differently, as long as you try to change your behavior, you misunderstand how it actually works. This misunderstanding will be evident in your covert, private speech, in what you say to yourself, as well as in your overt, public speech, in what you say to others. What you think and how you talk will be part of what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In NVB you think that you cause your own behavior and you also believe that other people are causing their own behavior. This unscientific view about yourself and others inevitably gives rise to problems. If talking misrepresents the reality, you are in constant conflict.

The conflict which occurs in NVB is between the speaker and the listener. In NVB, you construe these two as if you are either one or the other. However, you are both. Whether you know it or not, you are simultaneously the speaker and the listener. You cannot get away from this fact and you will be troubled by it as long as you have not understood it correctly. Since the speaker and the listener are one within each person, there must be a way of talking in which this oneness is properly expressed and can remain intact. This is SVB. You can have SVB all by yourself. By talking out loud and by listening to yourself, you can verify that indeed the speaker and the listener are one and the same person. By exploring SVB on your own, you will also find that although this way of talking is possible with others, it is most of the time impossible. In other words, in most conversations the speaker and the listener are experienced as separate. You accept that one person is the speaker and the other is the listener; one person presumably sends and the other receives. In this process of sending and receiving we assume that disembodied information floats miraculously from the sender to the receiver, who subsequently encodes, stores and retrieves this information. All of this is not how Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) really works.      

November 17, 2015

November 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

I no longer feel like specifically addressing my writing to my students. I thought that as they are the ones I talk with most of the time that it would be useful to direct my attention to them, but by doing so I find my writing become narrowed down to a level which is not that interesting to me anymore. Although many students write wonderful things in their papers, they are for the most part not really interested in behaviorism. This is  understandable since they haven’t been exposed to it and it is not my role to do this. I am assigned to teach the Principles of Psychology and behaviorism is only one of the many theoretical perspectives covered in the book we use. I cannot insist too much on behaviorism as that would make me come across as against these other approaches, which, of course, I am. By changing my audience again to only those who want to talk with me and have at least some preliminary interest in behaviorism, I do myself a big favor. I hesitate to write this for fear of losing my job.

Although most behaviorists are not responding, I find it still more interesting to direct my attention to them, as a few of them have responded positively. I am not going for quantity, but for quality. However, I am also addressing a population, who, due to their behavioral history, is ready to be taught, by me, in my extension of behaviorism: the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction. I am teaching a new phenomenon which only very few people are already somewhat aware of. My joy is in addressing them and that is all that matters.  

Since most people, due to their previous conditioning, are not into SVB, I am not interested anymore in their NVB. It is more of the same old nonsense and I am not going to pretend as if there is anything good about it. To me NVB is something to be avoided. For a long time, I have tried in vain to change people, but this has only caused me trouble. Of course, for a long time, I myself didn’t know anything at all about behaviorism and in retrospect that was the biggest part of my problem. Now that I have acquired scientific understanding of behavior, I am not as emotionally attached as I used to be. This is a tremendous relief. I still at times am surprised I am no longer troubled by leaving people behind who are incapable of having SVB with me.