The notion of "controlling a stutter" has become somewhat controversial. It requires a deep dive now. We have to define the concept in order to eliminate the 'black and white' thinking that exists for some in the stuttering community.

Who gets to tell a person who stutters or a troubled parent what is to be "controlled" or "not controlled?" Have you ever stuttered?

Stuttering has two major parts: stuttered speech and anxiety/avoidance. Let's change control from a noun (i.e., command or dominate) to a verb (i.e., guide or manage).

In my case, I was hung up on the phone for a decade- due to silent blocking. Did I want to manage my speech and my anxiety? Heck yes! I can now. If you stutter, you can evolve. You can dramatically reduce your anxiety and you can loosen your speech patterns over time.

Many people who stutter spend the week trying to hide and conceal their stutter. The refusal to accept, disclose, and evolve creates anxiety and avoidance habits.

Acceptance is defined as "the quality or state of being accepted." We who stutter often project on our listeners and we imagine a lack of acceptance because we stutter.

Joseph is a rising junior at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. He is studying economics. That was my undergraduate degree; ironically :) Joseph is rapidly reducing the severity of his stuttering. More importantly, he is taking on MANY sepaking challenges that are remarkable. He is VP of the table tennis club on campus. He parlayed all of his new courage to interview for and be selected as an RA in a dorm! He will be speaking and mediating on a daily basis.

GO JOE GO !

Tim and Grace talk about her fast paced job and the constant speaking demands in her role with the KC Royals. We learn Grace's back story and what she faced to get there. I have known Grace since she was 15 years old and stuttering will never stop her from a vision she has. She reminds me of Susan Jeffers book "Feel the Fear and do it Anyways."

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it" Nelson Mandela

Many people who stutter are often baffled by and frustrated when the strategies, techniques, or "targets" don't seem to work when they want them the most! What are your strategies? Which ones are helpful and which ones are actually part of the problem? How does anxiety affect you and make it seem impossible to use your strategies? Why are "techniques" only part of your solution? What can you add to your self help?

Refer to other podcasts in the series.

Here is the breathing video referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lxYvaTGVGM

As we begin to stutter we typically develop a myriad of avoidance tricks and unique physical symptoms of struggle. If you attend a stuttering conference, you will see a wide array of stuttering behaviors. Word changing, looking away while stuttering, taking phone calls in privacy, and inserting chronic fillers during stuttering (i.e., like, um, so) are some of the many aspects of stuttering that are choices. We have a "structure" to our stuttering as though the physical and cognitive aspects are an engineered product. This was my story, too.

Go back and listen to podcast #1- Purpose Intention and Stuttering. Once we have identified the choices we make, we can do the opposite and re-engineer stuttering.

It takes time and a ton of courage. Like Nelson Mandela once said: "Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the triumph over it."

Noel and Tim reunite 20 years after speech therapy. Noel explains where he was when we met, the therapy we did together, and his success today! Using metaphors and analogies from computing we break it all down. People who stutter have malware (negative thoughts) that populate instantly and trigger anxiety. What if you had an anti-virus program to remove toxic memories, to reduce anxiety, and thrive when talking? After listening to this podcast you will want to reference back to previous podcasts such at Purpose Intention and Stuttering (#1), The Cinema of the Mind, The Top 10 Forms of Twisting Thinking, Teriyaki Chicken, and Beliefs. Remember that his change began at age 30. With the right CBT skills anyone can dramatically reduce their anxiety related to stuttering.

"When the objective is clear enough, there is no obstacle"- Napoleon Hill

If you need software testing done, reach out to Noel and his team: https://celticqa.com/

People who stutter (PWS) develop fear and avoidance habits.  Unless we know how to help a pws with reducing fear and anxiety, we are not providing holistic therapy.  An embarrassing moment of stuttering or avoiding talking is "stored to the hard drive"-  it is consolidated, and it can be reconsolidated later.   You can actually feel an old memory in your soma! As Starkweather and Givens write, stuttering is a variant of PTSD (see below).   Anxiety and fear is the biggest obstacle for pws and graduate programs don't train students in CBT.  Time-Line therapy is special sauce in providing CBT for pws.  Disclosure and acceptance are essential but they take a long time.  What if you could run an antivirus scan in your brain and quarantine files of toxic memories, beliefs, and malware thoughts?  Caveat: as the wikipedia article states, you must be skilled in the delivery of this therapy. 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_memories#:~:text=Traumatic%20memories%20are%20formed%20after,hours%20after%20the%20initial%20experience.

https://www.stuttering-specialist.com/post/stuttering-as-a-variant-of-post-traumatic-stress-disorder

Books:

Time Line Therapy and The Basis of Personality.  James and Woodsmall

Adventures with Time Lines.  Bodenhamer & Hall

For a long time, bilingual families were told to discard their native language and to only use English.  Many practitioners and clinicians force English on their clients and patients during appointments.  Ana Paula G. Souza Mumy and John Gomez join Tim for an interview.  Ana Paula's research was recently published and a link to the article will be seen at the bottom of this paragraph.  The title of the article is Culturally Responsive Guidelines for Serving Families of Bilingual Children Who Stutter.  A few key take aways are: bilingualism does not increase the risk of stuttering, children can endure "code switching" as two languages are used simultaneously, clinicians want to allow the language of the parent to be used in the clinic or the office, and that language choice is about relationship and connection.  John Gomez is the director of When I Stutter (keeneyeproductions.com).  Ana Paula translated the movie into Portugese, her native language.  John is an SLP working in Los Angeles, California and he serves a very diverse community with a heavily bilingual population.  As America become more and more bilingual, this is eye opening and ground breaking work by Ana Paula.  

Link here: 

https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_PERSP-21-00235

Listen as Jeff tells you about his milestones that led to a highly successful career in sales.  In retirement, Jeff is a non-stop volunteer and a minister to those in need.  Jeff describes his several attempts at speech therapy before we met and he found what was missing: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).  Strategies from NLP and time-line therapy were essential in reducing his anxiety and unleashing his inner voice.