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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 15 Oct 2007
Time: 10:38:12 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.19
Dear Emily, Good question. Honestly, I don't think you any more need to stutter to run a group than you need to have suffered a stroke to do aphasia therapy. Of course, having some personal experience does lend authenticity to the process. We all have had misfortunes and have personal characteristics and baggage that would not be there in an ideal world. If you design a group, simply allow for any nonstutterers to talk about one of their problems while stutterers talk about stuttering. We have done that in most of our groups to date. Not only does it work well for the visitors and nonstuttering facilitators, it works well for the people who stutter. Honestly, openness, humility, trust, loyalty, sincerity, etc. are human characteristics that make for positive group experiences. You don't have to stutter to possess all or most of those. Or you could stutter and possess very few of them... I hope this helps. Ken