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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 11 Oct 2006
Time: 23:36:44 -0500
Remote Name: 71.252.204.114
Hi Cathrin, ..... Thank you for your kind words. ..... Yes, your perception of what happened to me is extremely accurate. ..... I went to camp in the 1950's - when the earth's crust was just cooling - and the speech "correctionists" as we called them back then simply didn't KNOW what we know today, especially about the stuttering iceberg. See my paper on the stuttering iceberg at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad6/papers/hicks6.html for details of this. The iceberg - one of the most fundamental breakthroughs in understanding stuttering in the last 50 years - wasn't even conceived until about 1970 and wasn't really publicized until nearly 2000. They were clueless on the emotional/psychological baggage beneath the waterline of the iceberg so they never even thought to treat it! No wonder my therapy failed. But it wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault really. We just didn't know. ..... What you are learning in school now is positive proof that what you are learning in school now is right near the cutting edge of stuttering therapy. Hooray! That is EXACTLY what this entire ISAD conference is all about. ..... Why did my stuttering come back with a vengeance? The stuttering iceberg gives us the answer to that. Everyone back then KNEW the fluency shaping therapy worked! Why couldn't I keep it up? Was I simply not trying hard enough? Was I lazy? Didn't I care? Was I stupid? Etc., etc... All those feelings and doubts were accumulating in the part of the iceberg beneath the waterline, but no one knew it! The overall problem was getting bigger and bigger and NO ONE had the slightest clue this was happening. ..... Ice floats because it's less dense than water. So if you blast off the top of an iceberg (and at the same time add even MORE ice to the bottom!), what happens? It rises up out of the water again to compensate for the density difference. Ice floats! Simple laws of high school physics! When I finally realized that, I nearly fell out of my chair! When the stuttering iceberg rises, that's a relapse! It's nearly as inevitable as the physical iceberg rising! Talk about an "A-HA!" moment! That's EXACTLY what happened to me and I NEVER realized it until decades later! ..... Another way of looking at it, my therapy failed for me - and countless others - because I absolutely could NOT keep up the constant practice and work and effort to sustain my fluency. Even today, I can use those fluency shaping techniques and they work almost flawlessly giving me virtually 100% fluency - but they only work for a short time. It's like holding a ten pound weight at arm's length. Sure you can do it for a minute or two, but for a lifetime? No way! Without the knowledge of the stuttering iceberg, and concentrating only on fluency, failure is almost a certainty. ..... And as you perceived, once I realized what was happening and joined the NSA and Toastmasters, both of which gave me a TREMENDOUS lift in self esteem and confidence, I began to get the missing piece to the puzzle. And sure enough, my life began to take some dramatic turns. ..... I wish you the very best in your future career as an SLP. You're very perceptive, I can certainly tell that. You're going to make a wonderful SLP! ..... Russ