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From: Andreas Starke
Date: 10/3/02
Time: 5:40:36 PM
Remote Name: 80.129.249.147
Dear Jonathan,
I had to think for two days how to answer your comment without sounding rude. But don’t want to be just polite and not say what I think: My interpretation is diametrically different from yours both times.
You say that your’re in trouble when you "focus" on how you are communicating. But it also could be the other way round. Maybe you "are being focussed" on how you are communicating whenever you have trouble managing your stuttering events. But that’s only natural. If you run and you have this nice "flow" experience that your body almost runs by itself, in the next moment, when you trip over something, you are back focussed on how you run. It is far from evident that the focus shift makes you stutter.
Your paradox is not really a paradox because your assumption is not true. Sure you can put your focus back to where you want it or put your focus to almost anything else. The account to of great psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Victor Frankl shows that this is principally possible under even the worst of circumstances.
I also believe that when it comes to the management of the stuttering process the Think-er could impede the functioning of the Do-er (a lot of abstraction here though). But: It sounds as if you’re blaming the Think-er to make you try to "micro-manage the speech process" (I like the term, but I can only hope than we have the same concept). But that’s what he is to do. The question is whether the Do-er has enough command to actually "micro-manage." Here the Think-er with his result-orientation stands in the way of the Do-er who is supposed to handle the task with an orientation on the process.
Thank you anyway for the term "micro-management of the speech process." I think I will use it in describing a certain stage of my therapy.
Regards, Andreas Starke