The Doctoral Student Summit

[ Contents | Next | Previous | Up ]


Did my subconscious have an idea: Faux Pas & Brainstorming

From: Gunars
Date: 10/16/02
Time: 1:30:41 AM
Remote Name: 206.63.151.166

Comments

Kevin,

Those of us who stutter, and I do not know if you are one of us, have an advantage in understanding and experimenting with stuttering. Because we can do experiments with ourselves as Leonardo Da Vinci thought.

In “How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci: Liberating Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace” Featuring Michael Gelb

there are 7 Steps to Genius in Ever Day:

CURIOSITA: Approaching life with insatiable curiosity and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning

DIMONSTRAZIONE: Committing to test knowledge through experience, persistence and a willingness to learn from mistakes

SENSAZIONE: Continually refining the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience

SFUMATO: Embracing ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty

ATRE/SCIENZA: Balancing science and art, logic and imagination – "whole-brain thinking"

CORPORALITA: Cultivating grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise

CONNESSIONE: Recognizing and appreciating the interconnectedness of all things – "systems thinking"

Using these concepts I was actually able to come up with a brainstorming idea that may or may not have been done is stuttering therapy. Does anyone know?

It was as if my Faux Pas was an intentional act of my subconscious. To wit:

Since at this moment my speech and attitude about my speech is on a roller coaster ride, although with a damped oscillation I decided in a brainstorming mood to do the following:

Hook up a lapel microphone to a tape recorder in my pocket and record my speech over twenty four hours period. If the speech was fluent, I would re-record over the segments of tape. If I caught a significantly dysfluent episode I would keep the recording.

Just as soon as I caught myself in a stuttering situation I would become super attentive to my cognition and to my affect. Just as soon as I was through with this situation I would write down my feelings and my thoughts either using a tape recorder or pencil and paper.

Then I would practice alone to recreate all three: 1) my speech to the minutest struggle, avoidance, timing, etc., 2) recreate my feelings as exactly as I could, and 3) note my cognition or thoughts.

Then I would go into a speaking situation, as similar as possible to the first one that evoked it, and recreate all the three elements noted above. I would record again my speech and make sure that I re-entered the situations until I had at least the stuttering style down pat. I would emulate the struggle, timing, avoidances and all. If possible, I would also try to evoke the emotions and thoughts.

Once I had mastered that part, I would go in other situations start with the crappy style and SLIGHTLY ameliorating the severity of stutter, the extreme feeling, the dysfunctional thoughts.

I would continue this until I could switch the blocks, feelings, and dysfunctional thoughts at my will.

So this is my 48 hour idea of a new technique that, in my extensive reading on stuttering therapy, I have not yet heard investigated in the doctorate thesis either in stuttering therapy or psychology.

If anyone knows of a study like this, I hope they tell me.

The theoretical basis of why this should work is: a) if you can at will evoke a context of stuttering such as feelings (affect), thoughts or beliefs (cognitions), and stuttering style (behavior), you are very close to understanding how to unevoke it!

I think that my subconscious wanted to test me if I am still creative enough to brainstorm new ideas. I really was perplexed at start, but now I believe that each of us, at least those of us who stutter, can come up with similar ideas. They may or may not work out. But it is great fun and great challenge.

Yours,

Gunars


Last changed: September 12, 2005