[ Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Winton
Date: 16 Oct 2006
Time: 16:56:11 -0500
Remote Name: 203.51.81.162
Hi Elizabeth. You asked: “I was wondering if you had many other influences on your perspective of stuttering. Have you related any other authors/books to stuttering, or has anyone (or anything) else had a great impact on you?” In my paper I mentioned a couple of things that helped a lot: the practice of fluent speech as proposed by Don Mowrer and the cognitive approach advocated by Bob Bodenhamer and Michael Hall. Bob’s book: “Mastering Blocking and Stuttering” deserves special mention. I could have added to this list the articles written by John Harrison. I also got a lot of benefit from a visual imagery exercise suggested by Tim Mackesey a few years ago on the neurosemantics email list. I have been thinking recently that lessons in the Alexander technique (about body awareness and relaxing into movement) provided me with a good basis for practice of fluent speech (speaking with the intention of speaking normally ie without unnecessary muscle tension) and is highly consistent with the “inner game” philosophy of learning to trust your natural self. You also asked: “do you see stuttering as a difference or a disability, and how do you want others to see it?” I think people should make up their own minds how they see stuttering. Some people who stutter have given me the impression that they think I am trying to make what they see as a major disability appear fairly trivial – akin to performance problems in playing sport. That is exactly how I view it in my own mind and I find this helps me a lot. I know this also works for some other people but everyone has to make up their own minds about the relevance of this viewpoint to their own circumstances. I should also add that I think John Harrison makes a very important point when he says, as he often does, that when we are talking about stuttering it is important to be clear exactly what we are talking about – speech blocks and bobulating are quite different. In the answer I have just given I am interpreting stuttering as speech blocks and the anticipatory anxiety associated with them. Regards, Winton