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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 22 Oct 2004
Time: 20:41:26 -0500
Remote Name: 152.163.100.198
Dear Katie, You ask some very deep questions. If we knew exactly what brought about stuttering problems, your question, "Can you develop a stutter from a tramatic story from someone else?" could be answered with a definitive "Yes" or "No." But, as you may know, there does not seem to be a singular underlying or precipitating cause of stuttering problems. I suppose there is a possibility, albeit very, VERY unlikely that someone could develop a stuttering problem after hearing of, reading about, or witnessing another's traumatic experience(s)because of a high degree of identification with the character/person (i.e., very porous interpersonal boundaries) that created tremendous speech anxiety that led to increased stuttering that led to fear, anticipation, and avoidance of future instances of stuttering, and so on. But, this is not such a likely happenstance, so I don't think a therapist needs to fear utilizing bibliotherapy as a way of courting a professional liabiity risk. My opinion. . . Secondly, I'm not of the opinion that stuttering is overlooked in general, as you may be suggesting, but mainstream publishers of children's books are looking to make a large profit on what they publish, so they carefully analyze the potential market for each possible book. Since the incidence of stuttering is low in the general population compared to, say, children whose parents divorce or children who are overweight, mainstream publishers are unlikely to publish a number of books about stuttering in children. Your last question: "Are there factors from everyday life that people who stutter share?" can be answered with a "Yes." For instance, as people become more anxious, they stutter more, people with stuttering problems and people without stuttering problems, both. That is very well documented. And, since stress is an experience common to us all, that is something everyone shares, in my opinion. Thank you for your questions, Katie. Ellen-Marie Silverman