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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 10/10/03
Time: 7:59:28 PM
Remote Name: 12.237.88.139
Hi Barbara,
Exactly! That's precisely what happened to me for four summers during my teenage years. And I never figured it out. Fluent... Relapse... Fluent... Relapse... Fluent... Relapse... Fluent... Relapse... It took nearly forty years to pass when I began to explore covert stuttering and the iceberg that I finally figured that out. Damn! THAT was what was happening! It's just an extension of the simple laws of physics. I nearly fell off my chair when that thought hit me!
The only difference there was that each time the relapse happened, the bottom of the iceberg grew a little bigger. A standard iceberg doesn't do that, so that's one minor exception to the iceberg analogy. To offset that effect, a support group like an NSA chapter is extremely valuable. We didn't have support groups back then (in the Land of the Dinosaurs, ha, ha!), so my iceberg continued to grow. But understanding this effect is VITAL to modern therapy.
Thanks for your comments, Barbara! I hope you're enjoying the conference!
Russ