[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Sandra Merlo
Date: 20 Oct 2009
Time: 10:01:08 -0500
Remote Name: 143.106.1.146
Dear Morgan, thank you for your comments and questions. 1) I’m thinking about the personalities of PWS for some time. I think there is a correlation between helpless response and personality disorders. All the patients I see that exhibit a very strong helpless response have been diagnosed with some kind of personality disorder (usually avoidant or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). 2) My clinical experiences with changing from helpless to mastery-oriented responses have been mixed. For example, I didn’t help two patients with a very strong helpless response (one of them had avoidant personality disorder and the other had obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Both quit therapy after one year, without improvements in emotional reaction to stuttering and in fluency. But I also have several others examples of good improvements from helpless to mastery-oriented responses. As far as I could notice, the improvements were not related to stuttering intensity, but to the intensity of helpless response. Regards, Sandra