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From: Gunars
Date: 19 Oct 2010
Time: 23:46:05 -0500
Remote Name: 24.16.221.172
I found your article very interesting and a good start for changing a client’s self-image and over-concern about stuttering. You did very well considering that the duration of your treatment was only eight weeks. My co-author and I take a slightly different approach using “industrial strength” rational emotive behavior therapy. REBT traces a path from the client’s various stuttering behaviors, through the unhealthy emotions precipitating the behavior, back to the root cause of those emotions: unwarranted demands on oneself. Clients are then taught a variety of cognitive and behavioral exercises to uproot their demands, thereby replacing their unhealthy emotions and self-defeating behavior with healthy, self-helping alternatives. Clients can practice using these tools with the guidance of their therapist and as “homework” away from the clinic. These exercises—including voluntary re-repetitions (called Iowa bounces by the late Wendell Johnson) and anti-shame assignments—help to reprogram the brain until the client no longer fears certain situations, such as as talking on the phone. P.S. One of the duties of my internship is to provide emotional support to clients (90% of whom I speak to over the phone). I no longer have any fears when talking on the phone. With a mixture of spontaneous fluency and managed fluency (the result of combining REBT with traditional stuttering therapies), I can pass for a normal speaker with no greater frequency or severity of speech disruptions than my fluent co-workers.