Iceberg of Stuttering

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Re: awesome article

From: Russ Hicks
Date: 10/20/03
Time: 11:05:36 PM
Remote Name: 12.237.88.139

Comments

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad my paper helped your understanding.

Boy, you sure ask tough questions... The "hardness" factor is certainly the most difficult feature to deal with. The ultimate aim for any SLP is to teach her client to be his own therapist. Listen to him, and teach him the basics, then let him learn to deal with the world on HIS terms.

My mother used to have a saying, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Try to get a hardened Democrat to love George Bush or have Rush Limbaugh vote for Howard Dean. Or have the Pope convert to Islam. Sorry, it just ain't gonna happen. You may be the most brilliant SLP of the 21st century and you KNOW what's right for a particular client. But if he absolutely will NOT accept it, there's not much you can do. My wife always says, "Russ, you can't save the world." And she's right. Much as I might want to, there are certain things that I absolutely cannot do. Very frustrating...

If you're a Christian, read Jesus' parable of the Sower and the Seed. (Mark, Chapter 4) That story has always had special meaning for me. Like the farmer, all you can do is to plant the seed. You absolutely can NOT force it to grow. For various reasons some people simply will NOT accept what you have to say, no matter how convincing you are. I figure that if Jesus Christ can't save everybody in the world, who am I to think that I can? Some things have just GOT to come from within. Plant the seed as carefully as you can - then relax and WATCH what happens. If it doesn't grow, at least you've done your best. If it DOES grow, you've changed a life! Rejoice!

The fellow who committed suicide who I talked about in my paper was one of these super HARD cases. He had the best help of anyone in the entire world, but he was so totally convinced that ONLY HE knew the truth, and the truth was that fluent people simply hated stutterers. What could we have possibly said to change that? Lord knows we tried... His suicide note said that "Now the world will know how much it hurts to stutter." How tragic... But some things you absolutely cannot change. As the Serenity Prayer goes, "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Good words to live by...

Does this help? The bottom line is simply to do the best you can. The rest is up to your client.

Good luck! And thanks for stopping by.

Russ


Last changed: September 12, 2005