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From: Gunars K. Neiders
Date: 10/5/00
Time: 8:56:12 PM
Remote Name: 12.13.226.14
Dear Frances and Jane,
I admire you both for working with such a challenging class of clients. Besides all the things you mentioned in your article, recent research shows that during the teen years the brain undergoing another intensive period of "rewiring". And to top it all the "hormones are raging" :-).
I really liked your diagram of the vicious cycle into which most of the stutterers have been caught.
Cognitive therapy, the examination of self-talk or beliefs and attitudes, was one of the ways how I finally learned to manage my tendency to stutter and my tendency to "awfulize" and "catastrophize" about stuttering. In my mind I carry around an acronym: HELP.
H stands for Humor: Am I taking myself too seriously? Can I find a humorous aspect about the situation I am in? E stands for Evidence: Is there any evidence to support my negative self talk? For example, where is the evidence that I cannot stand to stutter? (To which I humorously answer, "Since, I am here :-), I must have been able to stand it in the past.") L stands for Logic: Does my self-talk make logical sense? When I imagine all kinds of dire consequences, I can usually see that they are exaggerations, they don't make logical sense. For example, just because I stutter it does not make me a "nitwit". It only makes me a person who stutters. P stands for Pragmatic or Practical evaluation: How does this type of self talk help me? If I keep telling myself I just can't answer the phone, I will, probably, avoid answering it.
You covered the last three items in your paper quite well. Now we come to the part about humor. Teenagers are very, very sensitive. Do you ever try to introduce humor in your therapy?
Gunars