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From: Lynne Shields
Date: 04 Oct 2011
Time: 18:12:08 -0500
Remote Name: 76.215.118.209
Ari, Your experience is fairly common, I think. I find that many clients are much more fluent, if not entirely fluent, in the therapy room than they may be outside of therapy and more willing to talk in therapy. There isn't just one way to address the goal of increasing comfort in talking in the person's 'real world'--different people may choose different approaches that are a 'best fit' for them. Regardless of whether the client chooses to just try talking (as opposed to avoiding talking), to use voluntary stuttering (as you mentioned in your previous post), or some speech modification tool of some kind, I think it helps to first spend time helping the client identify their 'fear hierarchies' for speaking partners and situations. It is much less stressful, and therefore probably more do-able, for a client to try talking to the least feared speaking partner on their hierarchy, or in the least feared situation. Once they have worked at this level, they can decide when they are ready to challenge themselves to a person or situation slightly higher on their hierarchy. Best regards, Lynne