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From: Ed Feuer
Date: 20 Oct 2006
Time: 12:28:50 -0500
Remote Name: 134.29.31.173
To Prof. Tetnowski, Let’s cut to the chase here. There’s a something particularly lamentable about stuttering that produces denial -- including denial on the part of practitioners. And unfortunately, the biggest elephant in the parlour, by far, is the refusal by many members of the profession to acknowledge the severe deficiencies in what passes for stuttering therapy these days. (Anyone who wants to discuss that situation can reach me at my e-mail address below.) I believe that the experience of the last 75 years has shown that the traditional Lone Ranger concept has failed. I also believe what is needed is thorough and genuine systematic desensitization, healing and strengthening and that it would take a coordinated multidisciplinary team approach to deliver that. So how do we get there from here? In my essay In the Year 2025 at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/TherapyWWW/In2025.html I say that progressive speech therapists could start with small steps, reaching out to collaborate with experts from other fields. But fluency disorder professors could help get things moving by developing joint practicums with, for example, psychology and counselling departments whereby grad students could share stuttering clients and lend their respective expertise using the speech therapy model in a collaborative treatment plan under supervision of their professors. Those professors would, of course, have to work together, communicate, liaise. Why is this not possible? I would ask all the professors here, including those who now regard this topic as unspeakable, to consider something George Bernard Shaw once wrote: "Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' - I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?' ". — Ed Feuer edfeuer@mts.net