Scaling the Cliffs of Impossibility

Although the Lord has blessed me to be fluent every time I stand up before a group to give an important speech, beginning with my highschool valedictory address in 1954, I never take it for granted. It happened again on July 14 when I spoke at the funeral of my brother-in-law. I only had two days to prepare but in a 15 minute talk I had no problem speaking. Since at times I have much difficulty, there is always the fear that I will have a rough time. But after I do all I can to prepare, I have no fear and when I standup the words flow. I am very grateful for this little miracle. The promise of the Lord: “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” works for me.

Stuttering is a perplexing companion. To not be diminished by it is an enormous and perpetual challenge and one of the hardest and most important tasks that a stutterer can face. Stuttering is not for weaklings. Whether it is a blessing or a hindrance is up to you. It can bring out the best in you or enslave you. It can be an interesting, even an amusing companion or a hated one. One thing for sure, it will test you. As long as there is discord in the relationship, it will stay with you and bug you. If you truly accept it, it will cease to bother you and may even inspire you. In other words, fight it and it will forever beat you, embrace it and you can forget about it. If you are at peace with your stuttering and realize that it is something that you do and not something that just happens to you, you can make your accessory behaviors disappear and the self-made enslaving chains disintegrate. My stuttering consists of my own behavior. Who is doing it? I am. Who is making the choices? I am. Who can change what I am doing? I can. Who else? Nobody!

Motivation is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It gives us the power and intent to go after our dreams and make them become reality.

To improve my chances of scaling the Cliffs of Impossibility, I changed to a different face of the mountain, found a different pathway and transformed the mountain. I had been trying to scale cliffs of emotional adjustment, which were either too precipitous or too amorphous. The side of the mountain I am now ascending has a face of no avoiding. By changing my goal from fluent speech to effective speech without embarrassment, I transformed the cliffs into a more scalable mountain. The criterion for getting to the top remains the same: eliminating blocks, the most disruptive and frustrating part of my stuttering. Voluntary stuttering disperses my blocks and provides the traction for the easy forward motion necessary to reach the summit of effective speech. Fluent speech, although not a goal, can be a by-product.

Over the past year my speech had gotten really bad at times. This was because I had slipped back into an old habit of trying not to stutter. It took me quite a while to figure out what was missing in maintaining effective speech. I was leaving out the key ingredient of what my success was based on. It was not trying to be fluent. They say salt is what spoils potatoes when it is left out. Well, voluntarily stuttering (VS) is what spoils my speech when it is left out. You can’t VS and hold back at the same time. I can either VS and have effective speech or avoid and block. One is good, the other is bad. It is my choice. How successful I am will also depend on the interaction of my emotions and other factors at the moment and can change quickly. But no matter what the circumstances are, VS eliminates the blocks and make my speech more effective.

If you know you stutter most when trying hardest to avoid it, why not stop avoiding? Even for such a fantastic reward, it’s not as easy as you might think. Some reasons are:

The instinctive reaction to avoid imminent unpleasant embarrassing consequences is hard to override.

The hope that fluency enhancing techniques such as easy onset and prolongation will suppress the stuttering.

Since most of a stutterer’s words are spoken fluently, it is next to impossible to not gamble on keeping the false role going.

Self-defeating ingrained avoidance behavior is hard to replace.

Momentary fear of stuttering may be greater than the fear of weird blocks which may not happen right away.

The hope of getting past a block may carry more weight than voluntarily exposing yourself as a stutterer.

Failure to realizing voluntary stuttering is a small price to pay for relief from blocks and the fear and anxiety of these pending speech disasters.

Emotionally unable to voluntarily expose yourself to anticipated negative reactions from important people in important situations.

Failure to truly believe you can capture fluency by stuttering.

To emphasize the importance and power of voluntary stuttering in improving a stutterer’s speech, his self-esteem, quality of life and the harmful affect of avoiding, I contrasted the two. I overdid this, but one night I was having fun and kept going.

Voluntary Stuttering (VS) gives you traction, avoiding gives you quicksand. VS gives you clarity, avoiding gives you confusion. VS is freedom, avoiding is captivity. VS is your friend, avoiding is your enemy. VS is natural, avoiding is strange. VS is courageous, avoiding is cowardice. VS is effective, avoiding is ineptness. VS is self-respecting, avoiding is being ashamed. VS is the answer, avoiding leaves you clueless. (This is a long list, stop reading anytime you've had enough.) VS is to be embraced, avoiding is to be avoided. VS is smart, avoiding is stupid. VS is movement, avoiding is immobility. VS is assertive, avoiding is inert. VS is doing, avoiding is delaying. VS is being open, avoiding is concealing. VS is truth, avoiding is deceit. VS is real, avoiding is pretending. VS is expressive, avoiding is hiding. VS is being true to yourself, avoiding is a false role. VS is relief, avoiding is pressure. VS is being yourself, avoiding is being a fraud. VS is being positive, avoiding is being negative. VS gives you consistency, avoiding gives you uncertainty. VS gives you lucidity, avoiding give you stupor. VS gives you mobility, avoiding gives you paralysis. VS gives you advancement, avoiding gives you regression. VS gives you transparency, avoiding gives you concealment. VS gives you control, avoiding gives you helplessness. VS is overt, avoiding is covert. VS is openness, avoiding is clandestine. VS is speech, avoiding is silence. VS is honesty, avoiding is untruthful. VS is fluidity, avoiding is inertial. VS gives you natural effective speech, avoiding gives you abnormal mute struggling behavior. VS is bumpy, avoiding is crashing. VS gives you peace, avoiding gives you stress. And lastly and most encompassing, VS is liberating, avoiding is enslaving!

To see the difference between voluntary stuttering and pseudo stuttering see the contribution “Voluntary Stuttering vs Pseudo Stuttering.”

Finally, to my satisfaction, I have the answer to why my stuttering is intermittent. After years of wondering, I now understand why I am 100 percent fluent in some situations but have great difficulty speaking in others. And these situations can be only a few words or a few steps or a few seconds apart. Achieving fluency in a low stress environment is no big deal, any stutterer can do that and it provides only an illusion of progress and “false hope.” When there is no fear, as when I am alone or in a relaxed situation, there is no stuttering. Even when I am the center of attention in a group and feel calm I am fluent. When I feel good about myself and my confidence is high there is no stuttering. I can inject fluent asides in a group conversation and be fluent. When I am angry I can be fluent. When I forget about my stuttering I am fluent. When I know exactly what I want to say and there is no escape, I can be fluent. When I am speaking in a false role I can be fluent. My stuttering is a social anxiety/emotional problem, period. I am now not mystified or frustrated when my fluent speech suddenly changes to stuttering. Nor am I delighted when I go from stuttering to being fluent. I know both instances depend on the interaction of my emotions and other factors at the moment and can change quickly.

“Stuttering is generally regarded as a speech problem. But stuttering can be more accurately understood as a system involving the entire person--an interactive system that's comprised of at least six essential components: behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, intentions and physiological responses. It is the moment-by-moment dynamic interaction of these six components that maintains the system's homeostatic balance." – John C. Harrison

http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/Infostuttering/Harrison/genetics/genetics.html

"Is there something buried deep in our chromosomes that lies at the root of stuttering–a stuttering gene, if you will, that affects us in the same way that some lurking genetic presence creates multiple sclerosis and cancer? If we don’t turn to genetics, how can we possibly explain the fact that stuttering often runs in families?

Researchers assume that only genetic factors can be transmitted intergenerationally, but attitudes and beliefs can also run in families. The reason why these have not been considered as contributing factors is the narrow paradigm used to define chronic stuttering. When you look at stuttering as something that is constructed of ordinary building blocks, however, then attitudes and beliefs become causal agents and you no longer have to resort to genetics to explain why chronic stuttering often runs in families.

Even so, there probably are genetic factors that relate to chronic stuttering, but they do so indirectly. These have to do with the degree of sensitivity of the individual and the level of responsiveness in reacting to stress, factors that can be passed along from parent to child.

Finally, research into the genetic causes of stuttering traditionally involves "trawling" for answers. It is not based on a credible theory. The researcher often has no idea what he’s looking for. He just hopes that something interesting shows up, but what it could means is highly speculative." – John C. Harrison

http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/n/2012/04/17/at-wvu-one-man-fights-for-words-hope

Well deserved recognition. Dr. St. Louis gives comfort, hope and real change to stutterers at WVU.

A paradox of stuttering is that you stutter most when you are trying hardest not to. Until recently I always strained to talk as fluently as possible and to speak better than I could. As a consequence, I was stuck at a level of fluency far from the summit. I refer to my quest for fluency as “Scaling the Cliffs of Impossibility.” My avoidance behavior made the task that difficult.

There are many ways into the maze called stuttering but no universally accepted way out of this thicket of entanglement. My attempts to find the way out of the morass has been a roller coaster tumultuous ride resulting in the greatest challenge of my life. My quest for fluent speech is a multiple prong challenge. In some speaking situations I am at or near the summit, whereas in others, I am still at the foot of the cliffs.

Although, I believe I have it pretty much figured out for me (smile), stuttering has baffled the best minds for centuries. If “the pain of death is unfinished business,” Charles Van Riper, thought by many to be the preeminent speech clinician, felt this pain. In his old age he wrote: “To the ancient birch tree to whom, when I was a youth and it was a sapling, I swore an oath to find the cause and cure of the stuttering that afflicted me and so many others. Though I failed and we both have grown old I did my utmost and am content. Others will take up my quest.” Some people call stuttering a riddle, but Van Riper said that does not do justice to the complexity of the disorder. Some riddles are:

· What is the more it dries, the wetter it is?

· What is the more it is shown, the less it is seen?

· What is the more it is done, the less it happens?

· What is the more it is hidden, the more it shows?

· What is the more it is uncovered, the less it is seen?

The answer to the first is a towel and to the other four – stuttering.

Riddles have a pat verbal answer. Stuttering has no such answer and can be a devastating personal problem. Van Riper said, “Stuttering is at least a complicated, multidimensional jigsaw puzzle, with many pieces still missing.”

I am totally in the camp of Joseph Sheehan, John C. Harrison and Dr. William Perkins after he changed his mind in regards to fluency shaping. This view has always been innate with me but became clear in my mind after hearing Dr. Sheehan on a TV talk show in the Spring of 1984. I know for sure fluency shaping is not for me.

Dr. William Perkins (recipient of the Honors of the Association (ASHA) and Distinguished Emeritus Award at USC for his 50 years of Stuttering Research.) was one of the original researchers, developers and promoters of fluency shaping therapy with PWS; he is considered a GIANT in the field of stuttering by many professionals. After he retired and formed relationships with a number of individuals in the NSA, he authored a number of articles published in the NSA's publication "Letting Go". Some of his published observations of Fluency Training therapy are as follows: "I assumed...that if we could keep our people fluent long enough, eventually their fluency skills would become habitual. Not once did that ever happen. --- Failure to maintain fluency was the clearest evidence of dissatisfaction as speakers gave up hope that this therapy would ever lead to natural speech free of stuttering. --- The blame for failed therapy lay in the professional's failure to recognize that fluency is not the proper objective of therapy. --- The speaker is helpless to prevent involuntary blockage. --- Neural mechanisms of naturally fluent speech cannot be brought under voluntary control no matter how long you try. --- Expecting to speak naturally with voluntarily controlled fluency is like pasting feathers to your arms and expecting to fly. --- Fluency is simply a natural by-product of the speaking system functioning automatically. --- My colleagues and I have been to blame for the fluency failures. --- Voluntarily controlled fluency is the wrong scientific objective, to say nothing of the wrong treatment objective. --- The very existence of self help groups speaks to the failure of professional therapy to address the needs of those who stutter which is not about making speech acceptable to the listener. It's about coping with the feelings that create stuttering and understanding how they offer a path to full recovery."

I've been at this for a very long time, first as a stutterer and then as a person who has sought to treat lots and lots of stutterers of all ages. The message that comes to me over and over is this: Just when I think I have the problem figured out, someone comes along to prove to me that I don't. I have seen dramatic successes of fluency shaping, e.g., Jaan Pill, formerly founder of CAPS (Canadian Association for People Who Stutter) and Annie Glenn. I have also seen some dramatic failures. I can say the same for: simply ignoring the stuttering, stuttering modification, nonavoidance, contingent management, drug therapy, devices, and even such "far out" treatments as "singing speech" and "beating it out of them" (an alleged successful treatment for a former Marine). That said, I usually recommend desensitization/nonavoidance/insight, regardless of what other strategies a person uses. That's the main reason, I stay at work one evening a week to supervise our group therapy which focuses on insight and desensitization.

In my own case, I basically "recovered" using stuttering modification, but I find that fluency shaping is helping me overcome an old relapse while speaking Turkish. Go figure....

Voluntary stuttering to me is different from pseudo stuttering or fake stuttering. Voluntary stuttering is to “avoid avoiding” and eliminating the false role. Voluntary stuttering is stuttering openly and without substitution, resisting impulses to stay silent or using any avoidance devices. Voluntary stuttering is a willingness to stutter openly without avoiding speech opportunities, particular persons or specific situations. To varying degrees, covert behaviors are eliminated so the stuttering is as close as possible to the basic spasm. Pseudo stuttering (fake stuttering) on the other hand with all aspects under conscious control at all times, is the deliberate production of overt dysfluencies that resemble stuttering. There is an important difference.

Voluntary stuttering takes away the anxiety of lurking blocks. Trying to be fluent is like playing Russian roulette with the certainty that if you keep avoiding, sooner or later you will lose big time. With voluntary stuttering, there is no blocking but your stuttering is more natural and easier and your speech is smoother and your communication more effective. On a scale of 0-10, with 0 being no stress and no speech interruption and 10 being complete blocking and maximum stress, voluntary stuttering puts me in the range of 1-3 and avoidance puts me in the range of 4-7.

Capturing fluency by stuttering is truly having your cake and eating it too. What could be easier or more satisfying? Stuttering comes naturally to a stutterer and fluency is an ultimate goal. It is like taking a bath in the mud to become clean or defeating the enemy by surrendering. It is getting what you want by doing the opposite of what your instincts tell you.

The only way I have found to keep from avoiding is to voluntarily stutter. You cannot avoid/hold back and voluntary stutter at the same time. The opposite of voluntary stuttering is trying to keep from stuttering. At the moment of beginning to stutter, you must do one or the other and most stutterers instinctively choose to avoid. Unnatural blocks, which are a bigger problem, result when you try to stop the stuttering. Voluntary stuttering, as you will see, is the essential component in capturing fluency by stuttering.

For years I floundered in a swamp, not knowing what to do or which way to go and struggling to keep upright. Therapists were unable to drain the swamp and many added quicksand by championing techniques of controlling crutches which provided only temporary relief. I now know what works for me and how to escape the maze of stuttering. It is to abandon any unnatural technique that leads to avoidance behavior and false roles. Knowing is essential but it is in the doing that I will be rewarded. My pathway to fluency is to voluntarily stutter without any shame or embarrassment. I recently discovered by voluntarily stuttering I can eliminate blocks, the most dreaded part of my stuttering.

I call my approach, capturing fluency by stuttering. It is an easy to use natural technique that eliminates avoiding and disperses blocks and is my best hope to escape the bog called stuttering. Sheehan viewed stuttering as a double approach-avoidance conflict with the twin goals of reducing avoidance tendencies and increasing approach tendencies. He believed that if a stutterer can rid himself of every last vestige of avoidance behavior with respect to his role as a speaker, he will rid himself of the disorder. I believe this is true, if the added criterion of not being embarrassed by his stuttering is added. I am convinced that voluntary stuttering can get me to this point. Being able through voluntary stuttering to communicate effectively greatly reduces the fear and anxiety of not being able to say what you want to when you want to and makes any needed finishing touches of emotional adjustment easier to achieve. It eliminates the indecision and anxiety of whether to go ahead or hold back, by going ahead.

Well, first I will tell you what I am not trying to do. I am not trying to enhance my fluency. To me that means “controlling” or "handling your blocks” by direct methods such as easy onset, prolongation techniques, or other fluency shaping techniques. With tongue in cheek, I say the word the word fluency should be eliminated from speech therapy. Complete fluency is an unattainable goal for almost every chronic stutterer. Only when I stopped trying to enhance my fluency did I start scaling the Cliffs of Impossibility. When I strained for fluency, I was only setting myself up for failure.

When I tried to prevent moments of stuttering by trying to stretch fluency or by controlling or handling my blocks, I was following a recipe for frustration and relapse. I was cultivating avoidance by strengthening my already overwhelming tendency to hold back. And this reinforced the idea that stuttering is something that just happens to stutterers and does not prepare him for meeting future fears and failures.

I believe almost any direct therapy technique works well at first and for a while but then tends to become part of inappropriate accessary behavior. Trying to enhance fluency with crutches to prevent moments of blocking gives false fluency and I believe will cause a stutterer’s speech to oscillate wildly back and forth at a level far from his natural speech summit.

My quest is not for completely fluent speech but for effective speech, which is within my grasp. Stutterers can be temporarily fluent by avoiding words and other covert behaviors but this dilutes what you are saying and puts you in a false role. I am gaining effective speech by uninhibited natural stuttering (voluntary stuttering) which is simply letting it happen without trying to avoid it.

I welcome contributions of what works for others.