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From: Paul Brocklehurst
Date: 11 Oct 2006
Time: 16:32:24 -0500
Remote Name: 80.3.128.8
Reading through the posts so far I notice a recurring question that goes something like this… “does it really matter what label we use and would we not be better off focusing on therapy?”. In this respect I was interested to read Charlie Osbourne’s comment, made from the perspective of a knowledge of General Semantics. Charlie said... “It is often convenient and time efficient to use labels, such as "stutterer" while being aware of the fact that you are leaving out many elements of the person you may be referring to”. As a stutterer myself, this raises two questions in my mind… 1) to what extent do the labels I use shape my perceptions of stuttering? 2) to what extent do my perceptions of stuttering shape my stuttering? And, perhaps, also a third question… to what extent might an understanding of general semantics (or Kelly’s construct theory) help people who stutter develop the capacity to see beyond the labels? Perhaps lessons in these should be part of the therapy? What are your thoughts on this?