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Assessment of poor life satisfaction and poor self image

From: Gunars
Date: 10/15/02
Time: 1:13:58 AM
Remote Name: 206.63.151.166

Comments

Ken & John,

Has there been any study or an instrument which has tried to parse out the following three elements on the life satisfaction scale?

1) Real handicap due to stuttering – i.e. inability to perform a job;

2) Discrimination of society due to social constructs. Here I am talking about what women’s liberation and civil rights movements were all about; and

3) Internalized, unsupported shame, guilt, fear of failure, and being afraid to take risks.

Social example: a) A gentleman who has (3) would not ask a woman out but could say to himself that stuttering stopped him form asking her. This is self-inflicted wound.

b) The gentleman would ask a woman out, but her parents would talk her out of forming a relationship with her because they thought he would not make a good husband, lover, bread winner, and father. Yet there is no evidence to support this. This is what is meant by item (2)

c) When the man has the guts to ask her out, the woman agrees to form a relationship with him and marries him, but the man turns out to be either a totally incompetent husband due to stuttering or cannot help with finances in the family because he cannot do a job (not because he was prejudiced against) would indicate that the man has a real handicap (situation (1))

I myself have seen no instrument that tries to distinguish between these three types of causes for low satisfaction of life.

The feelings of shame, guilt, and worthlessness can and SHOULD be addressed by a good psychologist. There is nothing intrinsically bad about us because we stutter. The whole rating game is a sham that has been hoisted by an uncaring culture upon us. Unfortunately, it is we, who stutter, who have to realize that as Pogo said, we have met the enemy and it is US. We need to screw our heads on right by doing some heavy thinking or getting help from good professionals: either stuttering therapists who are also VERY GOOD counselors or good psychologists such as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapists or other Cognitive Behavior Therapists.

Gunars


Last changed: September 14, 2005