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From: John C. Harrison
Date: 16 Oct 2004
Time: 16:07:14 -0500
Remote Name: 216.27.182.38
This was a fascinating conversation. Of particular interest to me was the relatively limited purview of Van Riper and Sheehan. Just about all of their discussion centered about stuttering and avoidance behavior. I just wonder how these gentlemen would have responded to such breakthrough mind management technologies as NLP and neuro-semantics. I bet they would have quickly embraced them. I was particularly heartened to hear the comments of Bill Wensley who came in only during the last 2 minutes of the discussion. Although he did not have much of a say, what he did contribute was extremely valuable. He reminded Van Riper and Sheehan of the importance of addressing the ENTIRE person and mildly called them to task for not doing so in their discussion. This has also been my issue with the professional community. I have felt that from the very creation of speech pathology as a discipline back in the 20s, the professional communias incorrectly characterized what stuttering/blocking was all about. They saw it as primarily about speech. It was the best they could do at the time, but in essence...they got it wrong. This got everybody off on the wrong foot. Their limited perspective of stuttering was passed along from one generation of teachers to another until it became de facto knowledge -- ie: it was the "truth." And for years, nobody challenged it. Now, of course, NLP, neuro-semantics, and other mind-management disciplines are showing how the way you think and frame reality plays a huge role in the stuttering system. And it's given to PWS and SLPs alike many useful tools for changing self-defeating thought processes. By the way, if you'd like to participate in the most intelligent discussion about stuttering on the net...where people share their experiences with NLP and NS...log onto the discussion group at <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering>. The discussion group was started about 2 years ago, and people are making many inciteful observations. In particular, they're talking about what is working for them. If you have the time to read some of the early correspondence in the archive, you'll develop an in-depth picture of how people are working with this technology. In addition, log onto <www.neurosemantics.com> for many useful neuro-semantic papers as well as tools and techniques. Many thanks to Lee Reeves for making this recording available and to Dr. Gene Cooper who added valuable comments. Gene has always followed a holistic approach to stuttering, and I've never ceased to be impressed by the publications and programs he's fostered.