October 5, 2016

October 5, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) provides those who know about it with optimal control over spoken communication. Without the SVB/NVB distinction no such control is possible. Those who are familiar with this distinction acknowledge that NVB, or forceful control, signifies a lack of control.

People have high rates of NVB because they lack the skills to have SVB. Coercive speech is based on the old saying: if you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. SVB is a non-coercive way of talking. It is a refinement most people will never learn as nobody is able to teach it. As far as I know, I am the only one who can teach it.

SVB can only be taught by someone who knows about the SVB/NVB distinction. Such a person always takes a listener’s perspective and differentiates between when a speaker speaks with him or her or at him or her; the former is SVB, the latter is NVB. Most of us think the conditions of spoken communication cannot be controlled, but they are already controlled. Our social hierarchy mediates high rates of NVB.

Our low rates of SVB are explained by the fact that high rates of SVB would dissolve all our hierarchical differences. Those who continue to dominate others with NVB deny that increase of SVB this is possible, but those who acknowledged the disastrous consequences of NVB, rejoice every time when SVB is prolonged. It wasn’t until I became a teacher and a therapist that I was able to create the situation in which SVB was increased and the SVB/NVB distinction fully appreciated.

As a psychology teacher and therapist I explain to my students and clients the SVB/NVB distinction. They love it; SVB sets the stage for learning about psychology and therapy. It wouldn’t make any sense to teach classes or give therapy with NVB. Yet, students and clients tell me other teachers and therapists teach and give therapy with NVB.

Teachers and therapists, like parents, can only pass on to others what they themselves know. A lot of harm is done in the name of parenting, teaching and therapy and is covered up by NVB. It is only once we have SVB that we realize what we have been through. During SVB a person finds his or her voice and begins to create his or her own narrative.

Only in circumstances in which it is stimulated will SVB occur. Under such positive circumstances we develop optimal control over our own and each other’s behavior. We may not like to hear this,, but whether we know it or not our behavior is controlled. The unaddressed question is whether we are going to continue on the path of effortful, coercive behavioral control or of effortless, positive behavioral control?

In NVB we practice effortful, punitive behavioral control, but in SVB we engage in effortless, positive behavioral control. As everyone who knows about the SVB/NVB has recognized, SVB is more effective and more intelligent than NVB. Effective education and implementation of the science of human behavior goes together with a new way of talking.

NVB is ineffective as it is doesn’t stimulate or allow novel experiences. In NVB we mechanically repeat the same behavior. Psycho-pathology is a person’s inability to learn new behavior, but if a person is differently stimulated, with SVB instead of NVB, he or she will be able to learn.

With SVB we will have happy relationships and new experiences. Things are possible with SVB which are impossible with NVB. SVB guides us into an enchanting way of life. We will be hopeful about our future. Our societies will change as we learn to address and overcome our problems.  

October 4, 2016

October 4, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The scientific distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is validated by my work with groups, in the psychology classes I teach as an instructor, as well as by my work in treating those individuals who suffer from mental health problems.

  

In teaching and in therapy one can see the results of the increased rates of SVB and the decreased rates of NVB. Students let me know that they like my teaching and clients tell me that they are benefitted by my therapy. I haven’t always felt so appreciated and honored and I am deeply grateful to each of my students and clients for trusting me.

I am proud of my students and clients as they are changed by my instructions and practice what I have taught. They achieve the results I have predicted. In turn, I am changed by their results. As I write these words I feel a sense of satisfaction with my work and with my life.

Apparently, I have figured out something which nobody else has figured out. Although nobody has been as interested in the topic of spoken communication as I am, I don’t think that anything I say or do can’t be learned and done by someone else. 

During the course of the semester there is a point at which students no longer respond with more NVB than SVB and begin to produce more SVB and less NVB. In my classes this is a group phenomenon. A similar phenomenon takes place at the individual level with my clients. After they have been with with me for some time, their NVB becomes less and SVB begins to stabilize and increase. We notice this together.

Due to the unique behavioral histories of each of my clients the point at which this change occurs is different from person to person. In spite of this variability, the change sets in at approximately the same time as I spend with students, that is, between week 12 and week 15.

What is also interesting is that the evening class, which is three hours long, catches on earlier than my two day-time classes, which also occur on different days and which are only one hour and fifteen minutes long. Although I see day-time students twice a week, my impact is different from my long evening class where we have more time to go into things.  

The problems I face as a teacher and therapist are complex at firsts, but things get simpler as we go. I view complexity in terms of less time spend and simplicity in terms of more time spend. My marriage with Bonnie is uncomplicated as we have been married for thirty two years. We had a lot of problems when we started and I am so happy that we stayed together.

October 3, 2016

October 3, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It is no coincidence that radical behaviorism, which explains and supports the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in terms of stimulus, response and consequence, known as the three-term contingency, is also rejected in favor of all our commonly held nonsensical pre-scientific beliefs.

As the SVB/NVB distinction exposes and decisively cuts through all our explanatory fictions it is rejected even more vehemently than radical behaviorism. However, once this distinction has been accepted, radical behaviorism is likely to be more widely recognized as well.

While resistance to radical behaviorism is lamented in peer-reviewed journals, resistance to the SVB/NVB distinction is simply a matter of avoiding the face to face interaction all together. I mention this difference, as writing and reading is a way of avoiding the conversation.

The limitations of radical behaviorism have led to more writings which conceal the fact that unscientific people decline to talk with scientific people and vice versa. When the NVB speaker talks at the listener, he or she misses out on talking with the listener and have scientific SVB.

It is not whether something is wrong with the science of human behavior or with the SVB/NVB distinction, what doesn’t work is our spoken communication. It is coercive NVB which limits our ability to predict and control behavior and not the lawfulness of human behavior. We are not helped by hypothetical constructs about what presumably happens within each one of us. We can only demonstrate, explore, experience and verify the lawfulness of SVB and NVB while we speak.

Our knowledge is limited by the extent to which we engage in SVB or NVB. Moreover, as NVB can’t generate new practices it makes what we know meaningless. SVB turns this around and makes what was meaningless meaningful. Naturally, there is only so much a person can know, but with SVB all our different knowledges and experiences will be validated.

Our unique individual findings will make us listen to and adhere to the general law about spoken communication: aversive-sounding speakers always separate the listeners from the speakers, while appetitive-sounding speakers always unite the speakers with the listeners.

Apparently, as I was affected by this process more than anybody else, I was able to put my finger on it. My personal annoyance about and frustration with how people talked at me and my excitement and gratefulness about people who talked with me, paved the way for the scientific analysis which posits that this is the same for everyone.

The science of SVB and NVB doesn’t concern itself with the average individual as it directly focuses on our individual experiences. The SVB/NVB distinction has in common with radical behaviorism that it transcends group-think and that it stimulates us to think as individuals.

SVB makes and keeps us conscious, but NVB makes us mechanical and keeps us unconscious. This is validated by everyone who was introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction. Another experience evoked by anyone who is introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction is a profound sense of joy and peace involved in recognizing its simplicity, beauty and parsimony.

Objections against the SVB/NVB distinction or radical behaviorism are always based on outdated arguments that the so-called complexity of behavior is impervious to science. These complaints are always a product of NVB and will disappear with SVB like snow melting in the sun.

The proof is in the pudding. There is no reason to doubt that great things can be achieved by conversation about the SVB/NVB distinction and about radical behaviorism. We find that SVB is the kind of conversation that results in happy and productive lives, but NVB keeps preventing this. 

October 2, 2016

October 2, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

On YouTube you can see videos on which I explain and explore Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). There you will be presented with the visual and the auditory stimuli which make clear to you what I mean by the SVB/NVB distinction. We are way too obsessed with visual stimuli to pay attention to auditory stimuli.

The distinction between SVB and NVB can only be made clear if we focus on auditory stimuli instead of visual stimuli, such as in reading this writing. Familiarity with written words is to our disadvantage as insistence on printed explanations prevents us from having tangible experiences that make us understand the necessity of this distinction.

We have been involved in many conversations and we have observed how others talk, but we could not discriminate the difference between SVB and NVB as someone would always say that other topics were more important. The lawful relations of our spoken communication are easily obscured because we are used to and conditioned by high rates of NVB.  

What we believed was causing our behavior turned out to be not true once find out about SVB/NVB distinction. Upon contacting SVB we are often shocked and ashamed to find out how wrong our assumptions about our communication actually are. All of this needs to be overcome.

Oddly enough once we know about the SVB/NVB distinction our spoken communication turns out to be much less complex than we believed it to be. No great technical or intellectual skills are needed to be acquired to be able to engage in SVB, which is an effortless phenomenon. The difference between SVB and NVB is: NVB is effortful and SVB is not.

If we listen to someone’s personal history, we can recognize instances of SVB and NVB in their narrative. During good times SVB happens at a high response rate, but during bad times NVB happens at high response rate. Everyone recognizes the experiences involved in good time or bad times, but we are often not aware this results into two ways of talking.

As our narrative is about positive or negative experiences, we generally don’t recognize the role that our talking and listening play in eliciting or evoking these experiences in others. It is easy to understand that certain levels of SVB and NVB characterize the customs and habits about what is believed to be right or wrong within a particular culture.

We cannot communicate effectively with people who are different from our own culture to the extent that we were unable to discover the uniformity of how we talk. Moreover, these uniformities must be made explicit. As long as the SVB/NVB distinction was missing from our conversation, we weren’t able to address our cultural differences.

When we assign SVB/NVB ratios to each verbal episode, we will realize that regularities occur in different populations which are comparable to languages. Within each language there are actually two languages: SVB and NVB. These determine how this language is being used.

NVB is always used by the superior speaker to coerce and oppress the inferior listener, who will have to remain obediently assigned to his or her role in the social hierarchy. SVB, however, is based on equality between the speaker and the listener and is used by the speaker to reinforce and emancipate the listener into becoming a SVB speaker.

SVB speakers create speakers of a SVB quality and demonstrate that in NVB only a few speakers do all the talking. Only non-hierarchical speaking or SVB is a scientific way of talking as it facilitates the necessary feedback and turn-taking for investigation and verification. In NVB, the mechanical speaker demands: my way or the high way.