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From: Gunars Neiders
Date: 11 Oct 2007
Time: 14:44:49 -0500
Remote Name: 67.171.0.68
You have posed another extremely good question. Let compare laughing and easy repetitions. Laughing releases tension; easy re-re-re-repetitions also release tension. Although easy onsets and pullouts have value in stuttering therapy, they do not have the same function physiologically. Therefore, I always use repetitions as my voluntary pseudo-stuttering and advertising medium………………..For the severe stutterer, as well as the moderate stutterer, using easy repetitions in pseudo-stuttering is the first step to understanding that stuttering can be constructed to have internal locus of control. The brain of somebody with a chronic perseverative stuttering syndrome, can be subconsciously rewired to understand that what I a) tell myself (Cognitition), b) how I sense my muscles tensing and moving (Sensory perception), c) how I influence my emotions (Affect) through cognitive and behavioral exercises, and d) how much I practice (Behavior, practice) will influence how severely, with how much struggling, and how much secondary symptoms (such as pursing the lips, jerking my head, blinking my eyes), I talk (Behavior, stuttering). Thus, actually the severe stuttering can be replaced by easy stuttering in rather direct way. However, I would really build up the hierarchy one step at a time: a) voluntary pseudo-stuttering when alone in front of the mirror, b) choral reading voluntary pseudo-stuttering with the therapist or group, c) voluntary pseudo-stuttering in front of the therapist with whom there is a therapeutic alliance, d) and then start out on the individual hierarchy that depends on the client……...all the time reassuring the client that even though he or she is experiencing some discomfort he or she can do voluntary pseudo-stuttering, there is nothing awful about voluntary pseudo-stuttering, that it is actually easier than the old way of stuttering……………………….However, I would warn the client ahead of time that sometimes a voluntary pseudo-stutter turns real. I would assure him or her that he or she is tough enough to stand it and that in the near distant future it will no longer happen ………All of the cognitive self-talk I would base on Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy…..