Deliberate dysfluency? Just the ticket

http://www.stammering.org/deliberatedysfluency.html

Have a read.  Note particularly the emphasis on 'desire to be seen as a fluent speaker'.

Again the attention is on self. And with lots of monitoring.

The classic example of this is described in Matt McGinn's song: The Wee Kirkcudbright Centipede

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Wee_Kirkcudbright_Centipede.htm

Enjoy

Loss vs Gain

The psychologists tell us that we feel the pain of loss twice as much as the pleasure of gain and that is why we worry more about losing than gaining.

If you lose your stammer you could always go back and pick it up when you wanted like Ash talks about in his comment.  That is really managing speech.

What about forgetting to stammer? Can that be done?  Absolutely, I have seen and heard people forgetting to stammer and, I suspect, so have many of you.

Would not stammering be to deny your identity?

Wanting to stop a behaviour is a widespread aspiration eg smoking, drinking, swearing, fearing etc.

Is wanting to change a behaviour to say to ourselves I am not good enough?

Is what is required to continue the behaviour and just feel ok with it?

Some people change their behaviours and are ok with it eg learing to sing, voice improvement, speaking in public, becoming a parent, going to further education, learning to dance etc.  I suspect that they feel that they are ok in themselves but want to improve, in a particular way, and work at it.

Listen to an old recording of Billy Connolly and then a more recent one - big change in direction but not a different person in a total sense.  Also Kirsty Wark.  Done them both a bit of good!!

Excellent article

This is an excellent article by Martin Brough:

http://www.stammering.org/goingbythebook.htmlhttp://www.stammering.org/goingbythebook.html

Try copying what he says he did.

Phone

It is interesting how many people see the phone as a threat. Really the phone is just a tool, like a pen or screwdriver or handkerchief, but with the advantage that the other person can't see you or what condition you are in, eg unshaven, in pyjamas or wearing a rose in your hair!

Also, you are in charge of the conversation. The other person will have to wait for you to reply to questions or wait for you to tell them what you are calling about. And you can limit the conversation to the issues or anything else you want. You can go at your own speed just like in a car.

I don't stammer, but since I have deliberately taken the view that I will assume the other person is just like me, then the stress is less. ' I wonder if you can help me?' or 'What can I do for you, or what would you like?' life on the phone has been easier.
You may have noticed some people have a 'telephone voice'. showing they can be who they want to be and that is a useful tool. Try being the you that enjoys using the phone, it is just a role you play after all like the many other roles you play in life without thinking about them - write them out and you will be surprised at how many there are!!

I have noticed that people don't listen, because they are rushing ahead, and for the past few years I have talked a lot less and listened more, and if someone interrupts me I just stop , even in mid sentence on the phone or not. I let them have their say and then have the space to make a useful contribution to the conversation. I just wait for the space, that always comes, and that is fine by me. When they finally stop they have made the space to listen. I don't take interruptions personally: they are about the speaker not me. If I don't get my say then that is their loss. Also ' I would just like to say .............." is a helpful entry to a statement.

If the other person sounds aggressive then at least they are at a distance and I can keep aware of that distance during the call and keep them out there away from me.

Most people just want things better and have worked themselves up about an issue, or several, just like you have yourself eg about using the phone, because that is what we all do.
They may be exasperated and want to sound off so if you can just let them talk and ask questions till you have a plan, then you are managing yourself in the constantly changing situation, and that is what you do in the car.

Remember. unless this is a cold call the person wants something from you or will likely want to help you help them. So it is 'us together'

Also, if something isn't your fault don't take it personally. Ask for clarification and try to come up with a plan that will actually address the core problem, as best you can, and involve the other person in coming to a solution.

If you keep all of the above in mind you won't have the mental space to pay much attention to yourself as you will be thinking of the other person and their difficulties. If you do this I suspect you will stammer less and be able to get on more with
your life.

If you take the view that it is 'us-together' discussing something then it takes away from 'them and me' and is much more comfortable.

Try rehearsing in your mind's eye and ear and notice how changing your point of view changes how you approach the phone. Muscular changes or denial don't tend to work. Acknowledging shared values is a good way of keeping a perspective on other people ie they are not all bad. Keep the other person realistic but notice that if he is aggressive it is his emotion, and you don't have to take it on, but you can be quietly curious about it.
Mental rehearsal, where you change your thinking as a setup, is useful - back to the Dog Whisperer!!

Also, to look for, and acknowledge, small changes and improvements is really important.
Keep a journal and write it all down each night - get the habit. That way you can go back and see how today went compared to how things were going some time ago eg a year. Last week doesn't give enough perspective.

Maturity

When you stammer what age do you feel?

Try reminding yourself that you are older, wiser, more experienced and that you are pretty good at handling yourself in many different contexts and use the generalisation as a setup for every experience in the future.
If you are unsure how someone of your age behaves there are no end of role models in literature and TV. Remember you are not being someone else you are still you but identifying with other qualities and behaviours.

Positions

When someone on question time is listening to another speaker put yourself in their place: what are they thinking? How are they thinking it?

Listening

When someone is speaking to you, or you are listening to someone you don't know, what do you do?
Do you just listen?
Are you sensitised to rubbish they might speak?
Are you waiting for them to slip up?
Are you open to what might come up?
Are you more interested in them, at that point, than anything else?

I suspect you are just waiting and trying to make sense of the chat. Same as anyone else!!
So what makes you think that others are doing most of the negative things above.

Help

I have some time to work with anyone in Central Scotland who is interested in this approach.
No charge.
Please get in touch but you must be willing to put some effort in.
It will not be a quick fix.
But for how long have you been trying to do it yourself?

Role

We do play roles and changing the role of a PWS might be worthwhile.

Ask yourself: If I was a calm person - not the same as timid - how would I react to a situation or manage myself.
There are lots of people you can emulate or archetypes you can model.
How would you approach the day, others, situations, if you were a:

buddhist monk
christian monk
banker
comedian
adviser
counsellor
dad
mum
lawyer
doctor
nurse
actor
politician
TV interviewer
radio interviewer
etc

all


Have a go. You don't have to keep it up for long and notice that no one else notices!!

Maestro

BBC TV program Maestro.

Recommended as an illustration of how we can learn and improve.

What is needed? What would you need?

Fake it till you make it, and building on strengths.

Als, even skilled and experienced celebrities in one arena are not up to rapid change in another.

Also the program Faking It is excellent for the same reason.

4 more Maestros to go. Well worth watching.

What lessons are in it for you? What would you need?

Management

Do you manage yourself in your daily life?

Do you manage WHAT you do?
Do you manage HOW you do it?
Do you manage WHY you do things?

Or do you just react to circumstances and other people?

No, you don't just react; you have already managed your response. Even if you opt out you have managed the opt-out.

So you can't not manage; but you can manage yourself better.

Dog Whisperer

Do you watch Dog Whisperer?

Brilliant.

The owners are the ones who get in a stew and have to learn how to change.

This is good behavioural change stuff for all of us.

Use it as metaphor.

Genes again

If you believe the stuff on BSA about genetics? Read on.

The Wellcome Trust is an independent research-funding charity established in 1936 under the will of tropical medicine pioneer Sir Henry Wellcome. The Trust's mission is to promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. It currently spends more than £400 million per annum.

The world's first audio collection of examples of stammered speech has been set-up by scientists funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK's biggest biomedical research charity - 2004.

The article quoted below is on population genetics:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/News-archive/Browse-by-date/2004/Features/WTX022535.htm

'Time and again, an association between a gene and a disease was reported, but when other researchers looked for the same effect, they could not reproduce the result. “About 10 years ago, geneticists got very nervous about these kinds of studies,” says Professor Cardon. “They were afraid that differences in population structure were leading to the irreproducible results – and there are examples where population structure is known to have caused problems. But it was not only lack of attention to broad ethnic differences, but small samples that led to the confusion. We now know that if we are to find the genes that have small effects on common diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis, we need to study large numbers of people and we need to know, at a fine level, the genetic structure of that sample of people.”'

There is something about real scientists. Don't you think?

Brain disruption

Jack Welch the tough CEO of GE who, though retired now, is still big time in management stammered as a younger man.

He has joined the happy band of Bruce Willis et al. since clearly a miracle has occurred and his disrupted brain has healed because he doesn't stammer now.

So, defective genetic complexes and physical brain disruption can randomly and spontaneously resolve by some miracle.

I don't believe it.

BSA articles

If you search for 'sensitive' on the BSA website you will find a critique by Per Alm of a 2005 article. Basically he tells us the figures are rubbish. Don't stop there though: go on to the article below about adults being sensitive. No figures given but the ideas are well worth looking at.

For people who give statistical probabilities on very small numbers be very sceptical and always ask the sample size. Freak waves happen. You can flip 10 heads in a row: it is possible - watch Derren Brown. Lightening does strike twice. Also worth asking what exactly do the figures mean.

Be careful of what I say just as I am usually sceptical of Per Alm's conclusions.

By the way: is any of the stuff on this blog helpful on a daily basis rather than just occasionally interesting?

Mind over white matter???

Further to my last post:

Have any of you read Mind Over White Matter on the BSA site?

The scientists have jumped from mapping water to mapping nerve bundles. These are not the same but the conclusions depend on their being the same. Then an exciting jump is made to stating that nerve bundles are 'disrupted: this is logical bilge and shows that some folk will believe anything the MR sales people tell them. Remember MR reconstruction relies on computers and what has been your experience of computer sales staff?

There is no way, at present, of mapping nerve bundles.

And another piece of nonsense is to equate mind and brain. Not the same. But a nice selling headline for the article - MR salesmen do the same thing.

Don't believe everything you read in the literature; scientific or sales.

Another book - highly recommended

Gerd Gigerenzer: Gut Feelings. About heuristics or underlying rules we have for doing things.
Good few pages on the idea of trusting the unconscious mind and not second guessing. If we get an expert to think about what she is doing as she is doing it it goes haywire. Remind you of anything? Well worth reading for anyone PWS or not. Not technical but properly scientifically based and an easy read.

Get it from the library or Amazon.

He also has a really good one called Reckoning with Risk about statistics, which should be compulsory reading for those of us who assume that scientists who make up conclusions on very, very little evidence. can be trusted. Should be required reading for those who believe the latest research on the BSA website. You will tear your hair out!

Control vs Managing

Control is fixed and digital and confining. We actually have very little control of ourselves or anyone else.

Management is moment to moment, more analogue and both proactive and reactive: we can, and do, manage ourselves and others to a greater or lesser extent.

More useful and accurate to think in terms of managing than control.

Forgiveness

Which of us has not felt the burden lighten when we forgive someone who has done us a disservice.

What about forgiving ourselves?

Remind yourself that you are only human; you will make errors of judgment; you will get things wrong or inaccurate; you will let yourself down.

If you forgive other people who do the above why not yourself.

Make a list

I forgive myself for:
looking stupid - either stammering or not!!
being worried about how others will see me
being too sensitive
obsessing rather than moving on
not being able to get out of a rut
etc etc etc

Do it live too. In the moment when about to speak or speaking, in the pauses, forgive yourself for being concerned or nervous. Forgive yourself for 'not being good enough'- whatever that is. Forgive yourself for being a perfectionist. Forgive yourself for attending more to your own problems than to the other person as an interesting human being like yourself. Forgive yourself for being worried about what the other person thinking of you.

Get the idea? But put it in print first to establish the pattern. Take one issue at a time.

This doesn't give anyone carte blanche for bad behaviour but there are unhelpful patterns that are best recognised and reassessed. Do this after forgiving yourself and others.

Identity

Do I have an identity?
or
Do I identify with values, ways of doing things, standards etc.

Think about it.

We actually do the second but limit ourselves by thinking that we have an identity.

Actors identify with a character and while doing so can't have their own identity.

Identity is a behaviour too.

Where does this take you with stammering?

Don't stop

If you want to stop a behaviour then focus on doing something else and realise that anything worth doing is worth getting wrong at the beginning.
Did you drive well the first time?

The way to stop being Self Conscious is to practice 'Other Consciousness'

Block

What is your block made of?

If it is a mirror or wall why not make it a window and experiment experiment with expanding or changing the metaphor.

If you explore your metaphor look inside it to see how well it is formed: is it complete, look beyond to see if you can add to it and enrich it and notice how it changes and how you feel about it. Can be very powerful.

Self Talk - again

How we talk to ourselves is really important. Any hypnotist or someone who does self hypnosis will tell you that.
If I say that ' I am an idiot' then I am listening to that statement at both a conscious and unconscious level. At a conscious level I know what I mean but the message gets through unconsciously especially if I have a habit of saying it without the added value.
'My stammer' - suggests that this is a separate thing and to talk of 'cure' is to presuppose a disease.
Blushing is a good substitute for thinking about stammering.
Would you talk of 'my blush' No, these are things we do and it is worthwhile just catching ourselves up and taking issue with ourselves when we say anything to ourselves that we would not like to hear from anyone else.

Worth a look

I have just come across this article from the Oxford Disfluency Conference 2002:

http://www.theoryofstammering.com/Sims.pdf

Management problem?

It was a commonplace, when being left-handed was deemed to be bad for you, that children who were made to write with their right hand stammered. Not all of course.

How does this fit with my theories?

Well, I think that trying to manage too much is the big issue for PWS and that this mostly applies to how PWS think about what is important about other people. So I don't have a problem with it.

I came across a paper earlier today which described a child who stammered badly in two languages http://fla.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/36/255. The child stopped stammering when the second language was dropped.

Trying to do too much at one time or more than is required is one of the biggest problems we have in getting things done well. How the child was thinking at the time is what interests me.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when writing is extraordinarily important my hand stammers. Eh? I hear you say. When I am signing a passport application form for someone and the signature has to be legible and be contained within a box and if I get it wrong the form will be sent back and it will delay their processing and it will be my fault and they have left the application late - all of this is happening at the same time in my mind - not sequentially. I have to step back mentally and and carefully attend to altering my normal scrawl which I have difficulty reading at times.

So to mentally step back and ask ourselves 'What else do I need to know?' before launching could be a start in managing how we deal with situations or people.

Brain research

Norbert ( see links ) writes on 14 April:
'I heard about this research on the radio today - researchers in Berlin have found that our brains have already made up our minds for us well in advance of our own, conscious decision-making. A bit scary in many respects.

What’s the impact this has on stammering? Do we already know in advance when we are going to speak and what we are going to say, without being consciously aware of it? Can our brains adjust - in this unconscious knowledge - and anticipate where we will have problems, build up anticipatory struggle and launch into a full-blown block by the time we are consciously aware of having made the decision to speak?'

Well, where is your walking as you sit here reading this? or your writing, or your speaking? or your memory of your last holiday?

Sounds daft eh?

But that is what this kind of research illustrates: the immanence for our behaviours is there but only apparent when we act them out.

The more I work with PWS the more I am certain that in the majority of cases speaking isn't the problem. How the PWS sees himself in relation to others and sometimes to himself is the issue. And, importantly, that view is prior to stammering and completely separate from it. It is at the level of beliefs or identity.

Mind emerges from brain; mind isn't brain.

Measuring

Standards are about measuring ourselves against our values.

Some PWS measure themselves against an ideal in relation to other people.
Some PWS measure themselves against the perfect speech with no erms... or ehs.... or ahs.....
Some PWS measure themselves against some perfection they see in others that they will never measure up to
Some PWS measure themselves against how they think others see them

All of the above are not useful and most other people are getting on with their lives and don't even notice the folk around them.

In a shopping mall sit and watch other people - no one notices strangers - they don't matter unless they come into contact.
If you catch someone's eye for too long it may be taken as a threat or a come-on!! so look away or smile depending on your inclinations. You will notice their reaction anyway.

Do you notice or care about other people in a Mall the way you think they notice and care about you?

If you think they notice you an know anything about you what is your evidence?

What is the problem?

Formulating any problem is really important to stop going off at a tangent and imposing 'solutions' which don't connect to the original problem.

Is getting the words out the core problem? Attempted advice - take time, breath deeply etc - you've been there - sticking plaster stuff and we do need sticking plasters at times! Gene stuff and pagoclone.

Is the presence of other people the problem? Different problem - values, standards, attitudes, beliefs, identity but all of these can be usefully updated.

What may have started as the first may have evolved into the second very quickly.

You may see them as connected but it is important to clarify the issues, and they are not the same: some therapies go for one some the other. To improve the cake we need to INVESTIGATE what is involved and can be changed in order to know what to change and then change it.

Know Thyself

The Spoonerism in the last post was accidental and I haven't seen one in print before.
Onward!

'Who am I?' is not a useful question to ask. What am I? How am I? Why am I? are more useful.
The answer to the first question is ' You are you'. The other take you into much more interesting territory.


When you think about other people what age do you feel and who, or what, are you measuring yourself against? A specific person: a type of person, an ideal?

Do you think other people notice you when you are in a public place and not particularly drawing attention to yourself?

Other people

We sALL peak one way when we are alone, another when we are with good friends and another when we are with strangers: why?

If we were to teach someone else HOW, ie in what way NOT why, we do what we do, and what is different, what would we need to tell them? What makes the difference?

I don't think.............

'I don't think I can do that'.
What does that mean?
Is it about what 'I think' or 'that'. These are two different objects of attention.
'I think I can't' vs 'I can't'
It is too easy to get lost in what 'I think' when things have changed, without our realising it, and we actually could do the behaviour we want to do.
I used to think that I couldn't sing because of name calling at school and I didn't try for years: but I wondered if I could NOW and found I can and I do - a few lessons helped.

Social Phobia follow-up

As a followup to the previous post: if you onto google and look up 'shyness Zimbardo' and you will get the inside track on the top academic chap on shyness: he of the famous torture and prison experiments, his book is a great read, and use the links to get some quality stuff. Also the links on the site in the post.

Also, the Dummies books on psychology are pretty good for advice. I have a couple and could recommend looking the series up on Amazon or your local book shop and finding what suits you.

Aso worth noting that shyness and panic attacks are two separate things but may coexist. Zimbardo has a shyness scale in his book.

Social Phobia

Good BBC program on Social Phobia.

What is it? Fear of what others will think of me. Recognise the situation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/am_i_normal.shtml

Go to listen again box: should be available for the next week at least.

Structure and Function

'Having a stammer', suggests a structure that is part of the person, just as I have green eyes or feet, not easy to get rid of - a demon.

What about the other side of structure ie function, or the functional aspects of the thinking structures involved in stammering?

Right to Speak

I have just read the book Right to Speak, again by Patsy Rodenburg, and the first 100 pages are about the influences on the voice and style of speaking. You might think that voice is simple - anything but, and she gives lots of examples and cases. Exercises and advice too in the second half. Buy it for the first half and go onto the second if you feel challenged. Excellent.

Book - highly recommended

Presence by Patsy Rodenburg. Excellent, with lots of insights and exercises and new ways to think about speech and direction of attention. Written for self help.

I couldn't disagree more with her idea of 'energy' which permeats the book but if I substitute 'attention', 'enthusiasm', 'engagement', then it is fine. She has an unrivalled experience of speech coaching all sorts of people. Check out her website.
I have previously recommended the tapes of 'Right to Speak'. She has a nice voice!

Maybe use the book as a framework for self - help groups?

Speech Coach on radio

The first 10 minutes of the In Business program on Leadership gives some excellent insights into how to change the way we speak and the effect that this change in how we use our body can have beneficial effects on our thinking. Top speech coaches give examples of their work. The rest of the prog is also worth listening to.

So, listen again at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusiness/inbusiness_20080103.shtml

Scepticism

Happy New Year.

I posted a comment on http://closetstutterer.blogspot.com/ and Sophie replied that one reason for not pushing the idea of copying others is that it may open prejudice against PWS in some professions. True. But that is not a reason for denying the power of copying or modelling in stammering. The first is social bigotry the second is a possible association with a state of affairs.

If you want to learn some scepticism about Genetics and brain imaging I would recommend The Language of the Genes by Steve Jones. Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty by Gerd Gigerenzer and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini - particularly his explanation of Captainitis.

In terms of genetics it really is important to go to the original papers and look at the numbers involved and ask yourself if there could be another explanation. Don’t be too impressed by titles or qualifications. Remember that the experimenter cannot be evaluated out of his context: just as a stammer requires a context. Just remembered; The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman, what science should be about and usually isn’t.

Recently in UK an innocent lady was jailed on the evidence of an expert who wasn’t cross-examined with proper skepticism because he was an expert. The expert who didn’t know his statistics but didn’t know he didn’t know ( Donald Rumsfeldism ) was ultimately vilified. If he was properly challenged the outcome might have been different for all concerned and he would have found out that he didn’t know what he was talking about ie that he didn't know he didn't know.

You should also be sceptical about my notions. Ask yourself if I want you to believe things on my word or if I want you to search your own experience to verify my propositions and do yourself some good. Go back to the territory!