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From: NMU Andrea S.
Date: 21 Oct 2009
Time: 22:53:43 -0500
Remote Name: 207.75.39.135
I am enrolled in a Fluency class devoted to stuttering. Specifically, we are learning about the underlying attitudes and feelings associated with stuttering. Joseph Sheehan coined the idea that stuttering is like an iceberg. We only see the primary behaviors on the surface. Yet, under the surface, there is a vast sum of emotional feeling and attitudes. It is these very feelings that can affect how a person handles their stuttering and their improvement. Your reflections on the work of psychologist Carol S. Dweck are very intriguing. I too, feel that how a person who stutters feels about their stuttering, matched with difficulties, will deviate how they respond. It is intriguing that people fall into either the helpless response category or the mastery oriented responses category. Stuttering is something that a client lives with everyday and I see the helpless response and prevalent in stutterers. They may feel like each time they stutter, they are messing up, fueling the feelings of inadequacy. What is the prevalence of helpless versus mastery oriented responses? Especially in people who stutter? How can a clinician work on guiding a client to take a more mastery oriented approach/response? I would hope every client would come to therapy looking for challenges and seeing them as progress and opportunity, not inadequacy. Thank you for sharing. I look forward to future research and exploration on this topic.