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ALTERNATIVE
METHODS - Del 8
Therapy - a
luxury?
Is therapy becoming a luxury? For me, the above-standing ad with the headline "The ideas shape your life!" is no surprise. Already 40 years ago, I knew this and probably I have unconsciously benefited from it, but with the words "Just think, but be thinking right!" I have had numerous occasions to consider these words. Presumably, it has also been one of my guiding lights. I have tried to practice it and hopefully I have managed.
This ad caused such a rush of people. Everyone wanted to get into the building. Outside the street of “Gästrikegatan” in Stockholm there was a queue of hundreds of people this day, just before the election in 2006, when the right-wing alliance just received a majority for the formation of new government. The reason for this onset by young people, I can only guess but I got the feeling that they experienced negligence and shortcomings coming into the labour market - the market they had been promised a job.
Meet yourself
A course for one week for 27 500 SEK including VAT. In “Mullingstorp” they have 20 years of experience of therapy for advanced qualified knowledge of yourself. The methods include body-oriented exercises among others. You may face the most forbidden and inhibiting sides of your personality.
The conditions for obtaining participation are: You must not smoke, sniff or drink alcohol. Instead, you process your possible withdrawal symptoms and find the cause of your compulsive habit. During the experience and expression-oriented exercises, it happens that the participants can come in contact with other people's blood, tears, saliva and sweat. In order to protect part-holders and staff they require a negative HIV test and negative hepatitis test.
Some similarities in elucations
There are similarities in the technology that the therapists of stuttering are using. The core of all therapies is a form of relaxation and reduced speech rate. A continuous flow is that you link words and sentences together and avoid the case of unnecessary stops. There are always great advantages of avoiding new starters. The speed is too high for most people. Either you call it Slowed Down Normally Speech like Intensive Stutter Therapy does or that the tension is reduced by application of different soft words: Soft approach, loose and easy, not tighten or clamp. Other similar definitions can be: Soft starters, light contacts and not too much tension in the speech apparatus. If it is possible to obtain a coherent flow it is the start of the speech which is important and which experienced stutter processors focus you on.
Dan Mogren who used the method of Sven Smith was drumming on a drum on which he practiced the starters and other things in a rhythmic way.
McGuire takes a deep breath and then full speed, which makes them a little different. Similarly the Stromsta Method which takes up the second sound.
It is not as obvious with Stutter Free Speech (see page 180) which I see as a classic therapy popped up and modernized to one of the best technologies available on the market. This is classified as a floating method, a method which I think is user-friendly. In all these therapies is included a dialogue on the stutter-related problems.
StigLindhGaps
In Dan Mogren´s stutter group something happened that as far as I know of is neither talked about nor mentioned in the literature - I had gaps in the speech and it was my brain that was the producer. The gaps replaced the stuttering. When this happens the issue is if the stuttering returns or if it is replaced with another, suggested more buoyancy and more speech. Probably the brain takes the time it needs for adjustment. This phenomenon is denominated by me to StigLindhGaps.
The Stuttering turned to speech anxiety
The Hospital of “Södersjukhuset” arranged therapy for people who were anxious to speak. They turned to the press and searched for persons who wanted to be participating in the experiment. We were asked to complete a questionnaire both before and after the therapy implementation. We met a dozen times. I thought at an early stage that this suited me because I felt more like a person who was anxious to speak rather than a stutterer. It was a big change I thought when I saw that I in the present situation had turned from a severe stuttering person to a person with anxiety of speech. I could get an immediate confirmation of this because in the group there were two stuttering persons. The relation with those who were anxious of speech was the most conspicuous one. I had no feeling of that I could be a hidden stutterer.
The treatment itself was quite wonderful. We met a couple of hours in the afternoon. Mostly it was the type of dramatic exercises, contact exercises and relaxation exercises.
Then I got the impulse to create the Society for Persons who were anxious of Speaking. PS - the idea is not implemented. DS
You will not be healed until "the obstacle" is gone
Am I as a stutterer an angry person? Am I not a kinder and more modest person than all the other people? The question is whether you are not as angry as everybody else. Perhaps you are angrier than you think you are. Imagine having a monster between you and your spouse. How would your sexual life be?
A partner who you become intimate with demands both respect and trust. A lasting love can not rely on a game you act - who likes a hypocrite who is not himself. Anger clears the air and gives way to warmth and closeness. Sooner or later burst, the relationship which is not based on true feelings bursts. There was a girl who said to me: 'We have your stutter between us" before she left me forever. Presumably she could have said it in another way: "Your internal emotional life is blocked and disorganized. You are not in touch with your true emotions.”
If you are never angry, you have problems
If you don´t stutter you may belong to those who take pills for headache or migraine. The problem over removal makers will make it a little easier for themselves, they hand over their anger to someone else, someone who is a "safer" person. Are you not good at ducking or defending yourself you will get into problem and will get an unreliable telling-off. Do you have this person close to you for a long time, you may soon be a mob victim.
Some people "dilute" the anger and intellectualize it - common in some circles - what may be neglected is the spontaneity, sensitivity and creativity. The person who believes in calling a spade a spade gives his "knife-stabs in the back of his fellowmen - all of that may stem from the smothered rage.
Severe anxiety and severe personality disorders, phobias, obsessive thoughts and compulsive eating, with or without obesity, are some of the symptoms which can appear. Food is probably the most common "drug" we have. Another "drug" we don´t talk about is hard work. There are many other ways to salve one´s feelings.
Insomnia and too much sleep as well as muscle tension with constant fatigue can have its explanation in a narrow anger. If you consider all the psychosomatic illnesses that exist these problems are probably bigger than expected. What I have learned is that many stuttering people are tense. How they handle this, I do not know. My "method" is in all cases Transcendental Meditation.
Process your feelings
Begin by accepting yourself - with all of your emotions. Experience that anger is a valuable part of you. I know no more dangerous place to show my frustration than in a stutter club or towards my boss. In the club you can at least call a spade a spade that you are mad at one or the other. If you do that you've come far. Now both you and your partner know that he has irritated you. More outburst of feeling is not required in the situation. To come to blows is not an alternative for a civilized person. Moreover, it is unacceptable. Are you on the other hand irritated at the head, it is probably better to go to the bathroom and cry a splash and talk to him calm and collected at any other time when the worst emotional storm has settled.
Healthy anger is hot. You can choose to see all of your emotions - and eventually none at all.
Identity Therapy is a way to dare to work with your anger in the therapy room
As a child, I was not allowed to show anger against my parents. I harboured inhibited aggression. I realized eventually that it was not good to be so kind and docile. The release was Identity therapy. I used to say: "I have been on course to learn to become angry.”
The approach of the therapy is intellectual understanding of your own and others' feelings. At home and at work you are equally neutral in your image as you always have been. At home you can tell the family some time what you are mad at. Affective behaviour takes place only in the therapy room. You strengthen your identity and your bag of historic disappointments is emptied. Identity Therapy is for those who want to feel good.
Over a period of 25 years I was involved in the stages of the identity groups of different size. The therapy comes from Daniel Casriel. He has written the book "The delivered Scream.” I got experience from both the individual therapy and the group therapy. The therapy was once a week. Those who wanted to achieve quick results could be having on group therapy over the weekend. Climax was the weekly sessions.
Body-oriented therapy
Your own problems were brought out by the lighting and processing. It could be about my thoughts, opinions, attitudes, feelings and actions. Attitude-team varied from time to time and acted as a hub for work on the mattress that was performed in pairs. The choice of partner was if he could match the problem, so it was not entirely tied to the other sex. The work was conducted on mattresses which meant that the participants came very close to each other. When one of them worked to get in contact with the emotions the other person had to be supporting or helping both by talking and touching physically. The emotions that could come were recollections of anger, sadness, rejoice and pain. The anger was often the sense that was processed the most because it is the first one and prevents the other emotions from coming up.
How it works
In the great hall the people were in pairs on or next to each other. The noise level could be high, speaking strings of words, screaming cheers and yelling like sounds that were full of pain is quite normal - we all knew what it was about. To this day I remember what I felt and thought the first time about these people on the mattresses. One day I was suddenly there myself screaming with a living person on my belly lying like an empty bag. The attitude group was important in many ways - sitting on chairs in a ring holding each other's hands - all are in and participate, but most often it is one person who has indicated his wish to work with the five basic emotions: Anger, pain, fear, joy/lust and love.
In the beginning men avoid crying because we are not raised to it. For my own part it took more than a half a year of therapy before the first tears appeared, so far inside they were.
For whom?
Processing relationships was good. If you don´t wish to live alone participation will increase your chances significantly. When we want to break the loneliness the biggest problem to solve is linked in ourselves. The question is: 'Do I really want what I say I do? "Is uncertainty there, actions of strengthened identity must be at hand. All love is a retreat. My wife says that if you are in love it is time to seek help from the doctor. When a celebrity is trying to solve his or her problems, it can be read on the news bills "I want to be in love.” It's probably a much pleasant state of mind. In this therapy feelings are in focus. There is no guarantee that you may meet anyone in or outside the therapy, but you probably feel better.
It is definitely not suited for stuttering people because you don´t work at all with these symptoms. On some occasions I raised the problem and it was a big relief. There was a big pain to have been stuttering for such a long time. My smiling, that on the occasion, came in every conceivable and inconceivable situation and was also a burden that I was criticized for. What they did not know or wanted to understand was that it was my defence to disguise my stutter or anything else that was difficult. For a period of time, it was so difficult that I had to join Stutter Intensive therapy for recovery. It was fantastic that they understood my situation and let me in.
Freud failed to cure stuttering people just for the nature of the problem was in the "healing" speak apparatus. My problems of identity therapy were of the same sort, but it does not prevent me from saying that it was instructive. What I had in the bottom of my chest was emptied at least.
To get angry is not a pleasant experience. A whole series of physical changes prepare us to "flee or defence.” This residue behaviour of the early history of the human beings gives us the ability to meet the enemy or escape if needed.
There are two very common myths about anger, and both are incorrect according to Wilks in 1999. One is to free to air your anger at any time when you feel for it and wherever you are. The second myth is that you can suppress the anger so that you never need to know it. It is often in between the four walls of your home that these myths are kept alive.
Today, I know what my own and other people's needs are and they are remarkably similar.
What does the speech therapist say?
Lennart Larsson: "Many of us are rarely or never angry but walking around with tense jaws, perhaps grinding teeth in our sleep, as a result of the restrained anger. A psychotherapist once gave me an answer on the question on which approach he had to stutter: "Children who stutter were not allowed to be angry with their parents.”
"Being moderately angry, at the right person, at the right time, the right reason and in the right way - it is not easy.” / Aristotle
Gentle gym or "cannon" treatment?
When at last I decided to work with my stutter, the question was what kind of treatment there was and what there was for me? The range is between Qigong, which does not even have anything to do with stuttering but is a form of light gymnastics with 90 % of women as participants or McGuire most similar to tough results-oriented self-therapy.
Identity therapy or physical therapy, also called primal therapy has my great appreciation and where I regularly encountered myself in perhaps the most powerful form of treatment that exist in Sweden During this treatment you are surely shaken up after a relatively short period. This is a real "killer" treatment. NOTE: Not suitable for stutter.
Intensive therapy stutter is Sweden's most widespread therapy divided on three occasions in lodge and boarding environment, a therapy which I can recommend with the whole country as catchment area. It has almost everything.
Individual psychotherapy of speech or with a speech therapist can probably be considered a gentle way to increase your knowledge of the problem.
Group therapy is a way of increasing severity, but also to be confronted with people who tell you who you behave and what kind of shortcomings you have.
Short-term therapies appear regularly in local clubs for stutterers. A membership is not entirely wrong.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is as far as I know not tried in stutter connection. Intensive therapy of stutterers´s "stutter in town" would be part in that direction.
Stutter Free Speech. The Speech Academy is based on the cornerstones on three different tempos of speech and ten rules. The easiness of use I think is essential given the nature of the problem. It is a help yourself therapy. In Linköping there are knowledgeable practitioners and teachers of thetechnology as: Lars-Göran Johansson, Krister Larsson, Henrik Alm, Patrik Jacobsson and Jens Ekman who also have been engaged in therapy in Stockholm. As with all stutter treatment the psychology of all around technique is important, something they can do.
McGuire - you run hard until you fall but you quickly achieve results. Then it is very desirable to maintain the success. It may be a different view of life which means changing attitudes of the essence in your life, a long-term goal or a dream turns into the positive upward wind. Lars Åfeldt wrote to me after the Dave McGuire lecture at the World Congress in Linköping that the method was best suited to the stutterer that has a low level of fear combined with good and quick formulation ability and that the method is only suitable for persons of a small sub-group of stutterers.
Star Fish - A McGuire-inspired technology to all but also youths between 12-16 years old. Parents to the young people are participating and learn the technique.
Multi-technology - can it be created?
The issue has arisen in connection with the celebration of SSRs 30th anniversary. Lecturers from the major technologies showed great interest in each other's techniques. Rumours say that there are components of the various technologies that could be combined as McGuire breathing technology in combination with the Stutter Free Speech´s rest breathing.
In common to therapies is that you both pay, do the work and reap the fruit.
Treatment errors
In retrospect hand I dare say that I have often become treated in erroneous ways. By that I mean that I've spent time and energy on the wrong things. Any wrong step in the technology learning has lasted between 6-12 months, sometimes years. After that it can take months or years before I understood that what I learned was no good. An ingrained habit shall then be deconditioned which means that it must be removed and replaced with another behaviour of speech which will then become the new habit. The intermediate stage I have dubbed the Stig Lindh flip, which is a crucial position. Here is decided if I have the ability to fill the gap with the stutter-free or otherwise modified speech or if I relapse into the old familiar stutter behaviour. The absence of condition is both painful and frustrating. The more difficult circumstances are that all this happens while life is underway with all its problems.
For many years the speech therapist Olle Broberg taught me to watch my own mouth in a mirror when I spoke. This I brought into reality. I learned to look at people's mouths instead of the eyes which is more normal. It was only when I started in the Identity therapy that I realized that my behaviour was a burden. To learn another method took many years. I am not entirely free from looking at people´s mouths I sometimes think I am still there with my eyes. Completely free from it, I will probably never be.
At that time I stuttered on vocals which is a difficult variation of stutter. I started by putting an 'h' in front of the vowel. It was not long before it became the most difficult starting letter of them all. My speech therapist was worsening my stutter.
Much focus was about breathing. It was breathing from the diaphragm which was trained in. After a few years, I had a marked stutter at blocking and sales. It was so severe that I could get shortness of breath. It was an unusual EVIL stutter, a stutter that I did not even want to give away to my worst enemy.
When I came to Dan Mogren´s therapy, I had also a bad habit to always say "sand" instead of "and.” He pointed out that during several years before it disappeared. The word you know was also a word that did not really want to disappear.
Stutter treatment can leave marks for life. Ade-quate treatment is a must. Many times I have been aware of that the therapist has been ignorant and the purpose has not primarily been to help me but it has become obvious that I have been a test object. If I know about those conditions from the beginning, it is OK but not otherwise.
To relearn is a real curse - it should never happen - it is important to learn the right "stuff" in all situations.
Changing the pattern of speech
Erland Engdal told us in 1969 in P-club how he was using a speech technical method and how he on his own worked his stutter away when he was 20-25 years old. He was stuttering in two periods, first in his teens 12-14 years of age, after which his symptoms disappeared, to return and stay when he was 17 years old. Since he had a great interest for singing he began taking singing lessons three years later. As the lessons progressed he noticed that his stuttering was affected favourably. He started using his newly acquired skills to edit his stutter by feeling and thinking about the details of his way to speak and manipulate with his articulation and vocal organs. After hard and lengthy work he could by willpower check his speech.
What can be objected against the above is that he was in a good age.
A well-behaved successful treatment requires inevitably that the stutterer is successful in changing his pattern of speech. It is disheartening that there are so few stutterers who succeed in the feat.
My beginning of a new pattern of speech
The question is what pattern of speech I have achieved after so many therapies? It has been like going into a staircase for it has come gradually. It began with my reading aloud with Dr. Kågen´s nurses as a ten-year-old boy. Healed I was not but I was good at reading. Even better at reading I was when I came to the speech therapist Olle Broberg. I got to learn to breathe with my stomach in a robust manner. It was the same technique that he taught well-known players. You will remember those old movies where they spoke loudly and well articulating; they sounded a little "posh" and noticeable and more dignified than I am. It felt artificial and old-fashioned so I did not take it in. I failed to get the feeling. I searched for confirmation in all possible and impossible ways. My value came in second place. I lacked self-esteem.
I got into Stockholm´s Stutter Club when they were about to introduce accepted therapy - "The American therapy.” Anders Edenby, Dan Mogren and Hans Danielsson were the driving forces. The therapy suited me so I accepted it. I did everything to explore it in the different situations of speech. When I was feeling sad or depressed, it was "just" to make voluntary stutter in a store. Swish and did it feel good in your body! This was an effective way to get a “better mood, without stutter.”
When I in 1975 had the chance to participate in the Intensive Therapy with Åsa as a therapist there was a structure of the stuttering for now, it would be done in a certain way: Stop at the slightest stutter with the restart in a different way but with the right direction. The explanation why the accepted therapy suited me I received when I went to HCOs week-long course on disability informers in Karls-
skoga. The Wheel Theatre got there and played for us.
Since I had just finished as president for the Stockholm stutter association I asked them if I could visit them. It resulted in that I was "one of the gang" and got to play the main role in the play Gomeo & Hjulia. Moreover it was a time of prospering for us who were handicapped because it was "The year of the handicaps.” Who could imagine that I would get the benefit of what I learned from all speech therapists. It was just to run on with the breathing from the stomach.
All my life has been a single acting. When I understood that I did not want to play anymore.
I was not different
It was only when I started with the Identity therapy that I realized that I was not more different than anyone else. I saw their weaknesses. I found out what was behind the facades. These people were mostly educated people who wanted to be happier. They searched for love and confirmation. Some of them were real "seekers after truth.” In this situation, they were more alike than different. Job perpetual struggle that there is a difference in people e was something that was not true in this environment.
We are more alike than different
There were not so many issues that were problems. The problems, however, looked alike. Relationships and related problems were often the most important and the most common problem to work with. In addition our comfortable and familiar generalizations were put on trial. Here it was necessary to penetrate the atmosphere in the group if it complied with its own view. This was done in a special attitude group. What was the big concern was to "take place,” now the backpack would be emptied and the identity strengthened.”
For many years I was invariably in a therapy environment and other environment where stutter had no place, that manifestation was seen as a symptom and then it was not interesting.
The perception of internal pain
To move from being a stutterer to be a normal speaker was too much. Sometimes I got the permission from my therapists to work with feelings about my stutter. What happened was that I felt an incredible pain that came from my body´s innermost. It was an undreamed force.
Talk to me for twenty seconds and I know who you are
What is there behind the facade? I was able to observe people. I also observed myself. It happens that I even look at myself with the "eyes outside the body." Then I can discover the characteristics of my personality that I don´t want to be there. In the body sometimes words sound that the famous Swedish performer Alice Babs said in an interview on television: "There is always something in the personality to work on.”
The right tools at the right time
I who have been on the "stutter road" feel a need to move on to something. To return to what I have worked with before was not good. Moreover it may seem trivial that after several decades "nag" about a voluntary stutter or any other similar technique. As a chastened person I dream of the normal speech and normal relations with family members. All the techniques and therapies which I have been a part of have obviously affected me in one way or another. The tool box is big. It is important to use the right tools at the right time. My tool box today contains so much more than speech techniques. The best result occurs if the speech is automatic. Through various setbacks I have lots of experience but also understanding for shortcomings that most people have. The security chief in a major company told me that one needs to be strong enough to cope with a stutterer. What underlying values he put in that only he can answer for.
Shortcomings
It is important to take into account your own shortcomings. The speech requires its tribute. Is it strenuous, it is not unusual with a subsequent fatigue. It is important to understand your limitations and be accountable to yourself and stop talking early enough. Equally important is to take into account others' shortcomings.
A new pattern of speech begins to take shape
Years are passing and the process of a new pattern of speech is still proceeding, slowly and uncertainly, up and down, sideways and even backwards. While this is going on it may be wise to devote yourself to family life or other positive approaches to life. It is important to fill the short time on earth with some kind of satisfactory job. "Now I will have some fun with a little work" I say modestly which often involves too much work.
The aspect of time
Psychological problems take as long time to cure as you've had them. This time frame I share with our Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. If you have been stuttering for twenty years it will take twenty years to become an ordinary normal speaker. It sounds like a very long time. I agree. If you have been stuttering for as long as that there is a high risk that you will falter for your whole life - this is reality, the reality is cruel. My life has been one long therapy. It has cost me effort and a pile of money. Healed, I am not, there are certainly more therapeutics for me. Today I am an ordinary, fragile and delicate "youth" of 61 who still is curious about life.
Stutter therapy course
Courses on Stutter Treatment are advertised on the Internet. With the foregoing it is understandable that I am sceptical about it. Maybe there are people who have been helped in this way. Usually they are younger than I am - young men who want something, men who are not afraid to spend physical energy on the heavily breathing every day. "In all cases we have lots of air when we are afraid." It cannot be but good to be able to breathe away your fear, the ways are many. This course is called McGuire, which I think has a given place in life "for people with energy.” The rest of us must do something else.
For "people without energy" Qigong is what I recommend for the simple reason that it is not a therapy for stutterers. Nothing happens with your speech, moreover, you do not need to be sweaty or get physical exercise.
Therapy for the lazy person
Sometimes I play with the idea - why is there no stutter therapy for lazy persons? That could take place in the group therapy form with normal speakers, which ensures lively group therapy. The only requirement to be imposed on the tired and poorly motivated person is that he agrees to attend and participate, preferably with a written contract.
The learning process is disturbed continually
A reason for the classic floating techniques is usually impossible to carry out in society is that the learning period is long and must not be disturbed. The new stutter-free way of speaking will never be so established so that it will prevail at the least stress. Previously, there was no stutter physician who gave a stutterer the time he needed to be healed. The stutterer himself can be a tedious person. The problems can be many. In addition to conceive and convey a message, we have to breathe in a certain way. Besides, a number of ideas or rules must be followed to getting the process of speaking be started. A normal speaking person would never agree to "this hassle.” The most difficult to control can be your own feelings. Many of the stutterers that I know are inherently fine people, sensitive but troubled.
The classic stutter therapist swears himself free from any failure patient with the words: "You did not do like I said.” Before the words were reversed.
The Accept technology can be useful in a transitional period
One method is to go directly to the fluent speech via stutter free speech. Another way is via a stuttering speech. The advantage is that there is always a way to go back to the recognized situation when the strain becomes too great.
Stutter free speech
Stutter-free speech is perhaps just the speech we want. From the listening point of view the stuttering is gone. In fact, when we use different tempos of speech there is something that happens in your head. Perhaps it is just that the stutter researcher Per Alm means when he says that the two brain halves are working simultaneously but not with the same thing. They disturb each other. When a deliberate act of speaking in different tempos of speech activates the thinking process in one of the brain halves, the other brain half can work undisturbed, which would mean that the conditions to produce and deliver a stutter-free speech will increase sharply.
A demanding society
At an early stage in life my thoughts revolved on why it was so impossible to get a good speech. Why is it so impossible to change the way you speak? Why is always the feeling there that the fluent speech is within reach? Why did I always fail? I am forced to change both myself and the speech?
During all the years I have known that the pace of society has been too high. At the beginning of my career I did assembly line work. In the evenings I studied to become an engineer. Imagine changing your pattern of speech in the short time left over. This I had to do while I was completely exhausted at work. This is certainly not unique. Usually there is a general speech improvement in the time I focus on the speech.
Stig is Stig and wants to remain Stig, neither parents nor society could change that. I have always felt the need in me to fit into society. The speech was not only speech, it was a part of something bigger. My parents and stutter Physicians agreed: Stig should be hardened! It proved over time that the speech was dependent on the body and that it had been linked with the psyche. It was not expected that I refused to be someone else but myself, not even me.
To change the behaviour of speech is like changing the language
A normal person does not change his language in a short time and nor does the stutterer. Typically is that a new pattern of speech is established. But it takes a long time, sometimes even up to retirement age.
My life has been a constant being in therapy. I am lucky that I have been working during a great era with access to many different therapies, some almost free. Sometimes I have sought funds from foundations and received a smaller sum. The help I got was not recovery but it was a way to survive.
Everything that I have experienced has obviously affected me. Learning a new language is not possible for everyone for the reason that it requires a sense of language or a "damn it.” Learning a new pattern of speech I think is so much more than the speech itself.
Like a recovering alcoholic
In current life I am a stutterer that has no stutter problems. Latently within me there is the stuttering language that neither I nor my surroundings want back.
My revised behaviour of speech I have partly acquired in environments without other stutterers. My jobs and therapies have finally changed me. For at least 25 years I have participated in the Identity Therapy which is a therapy that in the group reflects society in general. Here it was not specifically accepted to falter. Exclusion was at risk all the time. At my workplaces the situation was the same. We were all equally depressed and wanted to get positive feedback which unfortunately is in short supply. If there was no negative criticism everything was supposed to be all right.
The aha experience is both seeing and understanding how tricky it is for normal-speaking people with all the commitments and requirements to live their lives. Experiencing close at hand how badly knocked about they have become in their lives, it feels undesirable to ask for getting consideration out of the ordinary.
To fix the ground on which you stand can never be as good as a "newly built settlement.” Today I am delighted to say there is a pattern of speech in me, which is better and more automated than before.
Some therapies are better than others
Shown in my therapy references I have participated in more therapies than many others. All therapies that I've tried have weaknesses and shortcomings. As soon as you activate yourself you may achieve an improvement. It may seem positive, but the fact is that certain therapies are better than others. Go for these! Unfortunately, most therapies have a positive influence in the beginning but the improvement wears more and more as time goes.
I have coined the word "lawn mower therapies.” Today you talk in terms of a fresh product. I interpret it as it is more than I who question the "sustainability" in the therapies.
I would like to see that new methods of treatment saw the light of day, especially therapies that do not make use of technical equipment to assist. McGuire is a healthy element that I myself would like to test. Cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, has also come like Body Psycho therapies.
Speech at a fraction of a second
“Trigger" is the sequence of things happening before the speech block or a hooking up. You know that you cannot process the speech when it happens for the reason that it is already too late, the speech is too fast. Lars Gimstedt NPL (see page 185) selects concretely to process the problem with the visualization of deep relaxation, which is a form of suggestion.
It's like hypnosis and systematic de-sensibilisation – forms of therapies which I unfortunately have not had success with.
The problem itself is recognized - Intensive therapy is entering treatment exactly in the same place but with the help of NNT (Normally Slowed Down Speech). Since it is thought that without training, it is too late to process the speech and instead you repeat it like a copy and then proceed with a proper speech.
In order to achieve a certain degree of results in the stutter therapy, it is enough to activate oneself with anything. That does not mean that I think we should be content with it.
Short-term evaluation
My experience is that any repetition of evaluation changes do not occur in Sweden today. The most common is a survey or study at the beginning of the therapy. When it is completed it is evaluated, sometimes even after six months.
Reports about good results for a method must be based on repeated evaluations. (Bloodstein, 1975).
My ideal therapy
Intensive stutter therapy as a whole, but with some new options in addition, is what is on my top priority. What is absolutely essential in this therapy is that you begin every morning with something that they themselves call for CRCD (contact, relaxation, creating drama), after that the activities begin, that can differ for each one. Some activities are also in common.
A single therapist can do wonders if she is doing the right things. I am thinking of a speech therapist in Stockholm, which had a therapy group in the auditorium of the Hospital Rosenlund that was built on drama exercises. It was especially directed to people who were afraid of speaking. In the group there were a couple of stuttering persons.
What is most important?
Drama Workshops are definitely the most important. There are so many things happening. In addition to that there is all the rest that can be talks with the therapist, to speak to the group or other activity. Intensive stutter therapy´s drama exercises also provide a great deal for both body and soul in this positive environment. The only bad news is that one day it will end.
Other things that are missing today in the Intensive stutter therapy
Desirable is to use the therapy McGuire advocate for those who wish to do so. The ID therapy was recommended to strengthen the identity and empty the "backpack" and examine identity as a form of "basic training" would also be an idea, as well as to test more "new ideas.” McQuire´s ideas about expanded comfort zone also seem interesting. In the 50's this phenomenon was called that "we would expand the stutter-free sector.”
Lifetime therapy
McGuire has lifetime access to the technology, which I think Intensive stutter therapy could emulate. That would mean that the stutterer at any time can insist on getting the help and support he needs.
Treatment Guarantee
Guarantees of limited waiting periods to people seeking care are in vogue. For those stuttering it would mean access to the therapy when required.
Pension solutions
Today a defect of the speech is much more serious than before. In former days we could seek jobs that meant that we did not have to communicate verbally other than to the nearest boss and colleagues. Today is required of all applicants to have secondary school education and be able to express themselves in speech and writing which concern all professions, even the simplest, which means that stutterers are excluded from the labour market. Those who already are in the workplaces are struggling to keep their jobs. In 1999 the authorities reinforced the situation of handicapped persons. It should not be as easy as before to sack them. The employers did not want to have employees with disabilities, even if it would work with adaptation. Instead they wanted people who could perform other tasks when needed.
Pension removes the stutter problem
Age and pension affect the quality of life and stutter. Stutter problems have a tendency to decrease. Stutter residues are always left, but it will be easier to manage. Retired people have in this way experienced a life without struggle and cramps in the organs of the speech and body they had not previously thought possible. They may help themselves in a worthy manner.
The statistics say that no more than half of the stutterers are working
According to SCB´s Statistics Sweden 2006, there are approximately 600 000 disabled people in Sweden with reduced working capacity. 50 percent of them are employed, compared with nearly 80% of the entire population. In DHR, the organization of the Disabled, is just over a third (35%) working, a study from 2005 shows.
All stutterers who wish to get it should be offered early retirement
A complaint that is chronic cannot be rehabilitated - pension should be available as option.
Therapy Favorites
[1] Identity Therapy (ID)
Since I during 25 years at regular intervals participated in this therapy, it must stand for something positive. The therapy works with emotions. Anxiety reduction increased my energy without making me tired. With the right feelings in your body you feel good. The stripped-down form has given me an insight behind the scenes of people. We are more alike than different. The most positive thing is that during this time I lived together with my present wife for ten years. Today we have been married for 20 years. This allowed therapy to be at the first place.
[2] Intensive Stuttering Therapy
A group therapy which is nowadays well proven and has attracted a very great appreciation among the stuttering. It is an intensive stuttering therapy. It has been operating since the 70's and primarily focuses on stutter in common, and is directed to specialized and university-oriented speech pathology profession as therapists. It has collected additional expertise as psychiatrists and psychologists. A prominent role has the drama teacher who leads the initial exercises. The phonetic leadership comes from the Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg.
The three residential courses are conducted during a limited period of just over six months. Between and after the sessions, the patient has access to the therapist in its vicinity. Here ends the therapy for the majority, even if there are several other course proposals.
Individual therapy with a speech therapist
The regional hospitals have speech receptions or a department of Ear Nose Throat. They can help you with proper treatment plan. There is also the therapist in the neighborhood willing to support you from therapy components of the Intensive Stuttering therapy.
What is missing is "life-long presence" in the style of what McGuire courses offer.
[3] Starfish. A McGuire-like course in England for all including parents.
[4] Stutter Free Speech (Stuttering Free Speech). Åke Byström leads this therapy both in Linköping, but also elsewhere in the country. Advertising is usually done in the stutterers´ own journal Communication. For three to four days´ time the technique is trained with different tempos of speech and other "goodies". Usually, he has the others in The Speech Academy with him, sometimes he's alone, but that does not prevent him sounding like a small orchestra. Åke Byström is a man with a big heart. He is himself a stutter. Åke Byström's life is SPEECH. He is a speech therapist who taught student teachers at Linköping University to become good speakers. He is also the man who has been involved almost from the beginning of stuttering associations. In 1965 he went to Örnsköldsvik to start a stuttering association, but time was not mature.
Åke Byström has succeeded in highlighting a fluency therapy when the accepted therapy thoughts were dominating. The actual technique of the "three basic blocks" tempo and tempo control with fixation of words is user friendly. It is a technique in time. The manipulations of speech raise no attention while more fluency is created.
[5] McGuire, a technology that deserves attention. A powerful breathing technique that creates security. The practitioner relaxes and let go because he knows that he has a tool that works.
Other Therapies
Other therapies, although they are interesting have not been mentioned by a variety of reasons. This may be due to the lack of availability or that the number of participants are few. It may also be due to the lack of evaluation to a sufficient extent, which means that there is no sound basis for assessing the therapeutic efficacy pins. Another reason may be that technology does not exist in Sweden. Are you prepared to go abroad, you can certainly find your "therapy" in this price range.
What Sweden can offer
The inventory above shows one pure and functional stuttering therapy. It requires a referral, which makes it somewhat difficult to access. Therapy of speech is also available at the regional hospitals. The Speech Academy with Stutter Free Speech is teaching and training in oral presentation and in the voice and speaking techniques. It is available to all.
McGuire is a therapy that may increase in popularity. Those who use it in Stockholm say that it is a holistic therapy. The breathing performed provides security and relaxation. NLP is still "blank cards" but I don´t think there will be any "broad" therapy.
This is what a country like Sweden has to offer the stuttering.
New and old therapies must necessarily be able to operate outside the therapy room.
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