A Blog of Personal Thoughts

A Talk in Switzerland

December 2024

By the time I responded to Michael Nicolosi and Nicola Cefalo to talk at their European Network of Behavior Analysis on inner behavior, my time to present from Alaska via Zoom was 0200. If I did a talk in Switzerland, it would be noon. I thought that was very good reason to travel to Switzerland. I could have stayed in Alaska and presented at 0200 Sunday morning, but I could not imagine getting up at midnight, dressing professionally, and talking coherently. I called my friend, Nancy. She thought going to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland sounded like a great idea.

I contacted the two hosts of the program, made a few plane reservations and off we went. Nancy planned the itinerary, and I prepped my talk. I paid for us to fly back premium on my air miles, the least I could do. Nancy stayed with Nicola and his wife in their apartment. I stayed with Michael and his husband in their apartment. My talk went very well. Gerard, the IT person, was extremely helpful. I wanted to take him home, but Michael said absolutely not. If I had 1/20 of Gerard’s knowledge and patience with technology, I’d find it easier to get along with my computer. I am patient with people but not with machines of any sort.

The study of and gathering data on inner behavior is my specialty. I started my career with children with mild special education needs, but gradually verged to students with more complex learning and behavior problems and from there into the study of inner behavior. What inner behavior consists of is thoughts, feelings, and urges, probably any sense images too. People in behavior analysis spend a lot of time talking about these topics, but no one has researched these behaviors as specifically as I and colleagues who have gathered data on thoughts, feelings, and urges. What are these behaviors?

All inner behaviors are ones that only the person having the behavior can observe. A thought is such a behavior. When we have it, it occurs in words; it is a verbal behavior. Some examples include a thought about work, family, a project, a relationship, the landscape. Such thoughts can be positive, negative, or neutral. Work: I look forward to going to work tomorrow. I like the project I’m working on this week. Family: I’m fixing a great dinner for my family that I know they like. I had an argument with my partner this morning and we need to resolve it this evening. Landscape: The view here is gorgeous with its snow-covered mountains. Or a negative one: If I drive through this rundown neighborhood one more time, I’ll shoot myself (an over-reaction but still a negative thought). I’m sure you can list many more thoughts you have.

A feeling may be verbal, but it may also be just physiological, especially at first. It may be a pleasant or unpleasant feeling. People usually say it’s a positive or a negative feeling. Children often name it as a good or bad feeling. When I first met the man I married, I felt attracted to his running down the highway, and as he approached me his looks and his smile attracted me more. I didn’t put those thoughts into words, but I just felt positively towards that person. I had butterflies in my stomach. Within days I felt love towards him. No one else could see that love or the butterflies, not even him. We can also have negative feelings. Anger: Someone says something negative to me or another person. That gives me a negative feeling.

An urge is different from thoughts and feelings. It involves the autonomic nervous system and occurs without a person’s thought or control the first time it happens. A car runs a red light and almost hits me as I drive with the green light. My pulse increases. My hands may shake. I suddenly perspire. I might pull over to the side of the street till my heartbeat slows and my hands stop shaking. I burst into tears. I look for the vehicle as I feel an urge to scream at the driver’s stupidity. I realize  might have died if that vehicle had hit me and my anger surges. These physiological responses are beyond my control until I learn to control them, if I learn to control them.

A different situation involving urges can occur during a war situation. A civilian does not know when a drone, missile, or plane is coming, but learns to respond with fear or the urge to flee or dive under the bed or run to the basement—increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, tears, fury, or other inner behaviors—at the sound of an incoming object of life-threatening danger. This occurs the very first time. Then people learn just the same way they learn to read or swim. Repeated situations become practice situations, and we have learned to try to escape the danger.

After I defined thoughts, feelings, and urges, I gave examples of what people have counted in these different situations, dependent on what they wanted to change about themselves. One person wanted to reduce aggressive thoughts and feelings, another to decrease suicide thoughts, another observed depression behaviors. Many other people have worked to increase positive thoughts and feelings about self and to decrease the negative ones. A nursing program had students count positive and negative thoughts and feelings in different clinical settings to help the students know what field would appeal to them most for their future employment.

Abigail at the beginning of her presentation on definitions, data, and decision making on inner behavior.

In addition to my talk, our hosts showed us around after the conference finished. They took us to other places—Triberg am Rhein in the Black Forest, Lucerne, and more in Switzerland, and Colmar, Alsace in France to name a few of them. Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to go to the Black Forest and Alsace. Why? Because both seemed magical to me. The magic of both is now a reality with the smells of nature, streets lit with Christmas lights, and delicious food, including one of my favorites—cheese.

When visiting the Black Forest, I realized it looked like the spruce, pine, and hemlock forest where I live in Alaska. It’s thick, dark, and hard for the sun to reach through, so close are the trees. In winter, the trees look black, the mountains blue, and the snow is white. It’s not a colorful time of year, but I like the severity of the scene.

In Germany, Austria, and France, I also saw the history of World Wars I and II as I looked at green farm fields, streams, and forests. I pictured the true stories I had read of barbed wire, No Man’s Land, tanks, and people dressed in grey clothing, and people with solemn and sad faces. Yet the land decades ago recovered to a bucolic scene. Still, history rings in my thoughts as I walk through the peace of land that now exists in Europe.

Michael, Nancy, Nicola, Gerard, and Abigail in Lucerne, Switzerland with Michael and Gerard my hosts, and Nicola and his wife (not here but at work) as Nancy’s hosts.