Identity

I have just come across a very interesting article at http://www.stammering.org/heidi4.html and Heidi who has had some success with the SpeechEasy device says, 'therapy support has been vital for me, in order to explore who I am now that I don't stammer so much'.

This supports my last post, I think.

But use anything that helps apart from drugs.

As for the rest of the article: I have reservations about how people interpret brain imaging - I do it for a living. The main thing to remember is that evidence of association is not evidence of causation. What comes first: the function or the structure? And imaging may show which structures are associated, or not, with a behaviour. Occasionally there is a structural abnormality which is clearly seen: as in some cases of epilepsy and tumours.

Shyness, anger and depression may show changes in in imaging but does that mean there is a 'causal' relationship? Very rarely.

What is there to lose?

If you could speak without stammering what would you have to lose?

Seems a daft question but please take it seriously.

You might think in terms of regret about the missed opportunities, the fear of losing the excuses you have had not to do things, of not knowing who you would be - a biggy! or many other things - all legitimate.

How much of your identity is involved in your stammering or vice versa?

At first you may think you have nothing to lose but remember your stammering is part of your behaviour and our behaviour is our evidence for who we think we are. And it is a cybernetic relationship. We are what we do.

I am a smoker ( I actually wouldn't be seen dead smoking) therefore if I smoke I confirm my identity as a smoker. I may be a non-smoker and occasionally smoke, or a smoker who doesn't smoke. The latter is very hard work. Easier not to smoke if a non-smoker but this requires an identity change - not impossible if recognised but can be a big hurdle if unconscious.

The hard work of the covert PWS comes to mind.

Good book INFLUENCE by Robert Cialdini. How do we influence ourselves? Our behaviour is our feedback.

So, what do you have to lose?

safety in stumblers

Safety in Stumblers has kindly given me an opportunity to attend the meeting on 3rd December.

I don't know yet what I will do at the meeeting. The last time I spoke to them, 2 years ago, I gave an overview of modelling which might be applied to stammering.

What kind of folk do I hope will be there?

One of the things I have found dealing with academics and others who have thought deeply and long about their condition, whether it be stammering or dyslexia or fear of flying, is that the more baggage they bring to the table the harder it is to convince them of any change. I worked with a dyslexic girl who could spell long words easily when I showed her how but remained unconvinced that it was how she was doing spelling that was the problem and so didn't practice or improve. It was too simple. I only had one session with her so a convincer session was missing!

One of the things thinking about a problem over a period of time does is build up a myth about it. My problem is special and complex and meaningful and so it should be impossible to change easily. I have had PWS tell me that they can see what I am getting at but not actually doing what I ask them to do. Yes, theory is interesting but if I don't taste a food no amount of description will substitute.

I am a practical chap. If I try something and it works then I don't second guess it. I try to use it and think about it later not at the time. I want to do the whatever it is as well as I can, at the time of the work. I don't want to be distracted by extraneous thoughts.

I might look for a volunteer to work with or talk about my working with PWS. Depends what they want on the night, I suppose. It will be sharing rather than preaching. The stuff on this blog is about life in general and I use stammering as an application. But the models and ways of thinking have universal applications.

Some meanderings about what makes PWS try therapy?

Most of the PWS I have met have been very intelligent and getting on with their lives and successfully too. They may feel that stammering has held them back but doing something about it is a challenge and requires disruption to the way they have organised their lives.

My ideas about stammering have only been tested once and that was successful in that after 5 sessions the client could speak his name, answer the phone and hold a conversation without stammering. A situation which has held for over a year now. He tells me that when he has the occasional lapse he knows how to deal with the situation. The sessions cost him nothing apart from time and there was no homework, just insight.

I have worked with several PWS who felt in enough crisis to do something about it . They seemed to gain insights into their thinking and how they stammered but life caught up with them and after 3 or 4 times the sessions lapsed.

There is a world of difference between someone who doesn't want to be poor and one who wants to be rich. They will stop trying at different points on the continuum of making money. Keeping a sense of crisis is difficult and can be exhausting especially when there is no immediate improvement in speech.

Starting again is not actually restarting because the person will start from a different point of view or context. It is renewing the re-learing of speech. To see things as a journey is a useful metaphor and it is worth noting how far one has come.

Stammering emerges and so does normal speech. To change the way things emerge the necessary conditions need to be assembled and organised and this takes time. I tend to give mayself 5 sessions to make some impact.

And there is no one approach: if one is in the cat skinning business one should at least know a few ways of approaching the job. Change often takes effort but the journey can be interesting and fun.


As I read in one article in the BSA site: anyone can help a PWS to stop stammering for a week. My cred is that, given the chance, that week, 18 months ago, has lasted till now. Fast cures like NLP ( I have a practitioner cert. ) are very unlikely to provide long lasting change in a session: good for recent onset phobias, not generalised fears where the person has built up a structure to explain the problem.

I make time to work with PWS because stammering interests me. One problem I have is that apart from the client mentioned above I have no continual history of success and folk don't want to waste their time. I cannot promise to resolve anyones speech difficulties. I do expect to have a significant impact on how speech emerges, in a reasonable time and to provide some personal insights along the way.

Maybe I should call what I do insight therapy.

Standards

We operate out of our standards in almost everything we do: what we should do or be, what other people should do, what the world should be like.

We apply our standards in an ‘either / or’ way or in a ‘more or less way’ and some things may be one and some the other. Or we apply them as a mature adult or a young kid! And we do it unconsciously.

It is very useful to know what standards we are operating from and how we are using them. A good way to find out is to ask ourselves what makes us angry or uncomfortable.

If someone cuts me up on the motorway I can either get angry or move back to let him in and the judgment about the driver will depend on what standards of courtesy I apply to myself or expect from other road users. How I am feeling in general will affect my judgment too: sometimes I am easy with such behaviour sometimes very judgmental. When I start to judge other drivers negatively I ask myself what else is bothering me because often there is something that needs attention and this helps to shine the spotlight on it.

Rather than wanting a bad feeling to go away it is more useful to ask ourselves which of our standards are being violated and how. Use a notebook to grab the moment and reflect on it later.

If stammering is an expression of what is going on in us then looking at our standards is a useful way of finding out the unconscious judgments about ourselves and the world that provide a back story for the stammer i.e. our behaviour.

Some of the standards may be out of date and need reassessed and some are ok but being applied in a less than useful way.
Ask yourself would you want a young kid to grow up with the particular standard and if so how would you want him to apply the standard and when.

Think 'useful' rather than 'right or wrong'. Remember many of our standards are formed when we were 5 or 6 years old.