Mastering Blocking & Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency
"If you can speak fluently in just one context, you can learn to speak fluently in all contexts."
By Bobby G Bodenhamer, D. Min.
First Published: “European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis”
Abstract
Bernard-thomas Hartman, Ph.D., FAAMD
I have stuttered, while speaking, and to varying degrees, most of my adult life. Largely due to this fact, I’ve spent the bulk of my career studying speech pathology and psychology. I’m now a retired university professor, and would like to take this opportunity to pass on to you something that I’ve learned about stuttering, and articulate a particular approach to …
By Bobby Bodenhamer, D.Min.
In Part I we learned:
By Bobby Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Why is it that I can speak fluently when I am by myself but as soon as I go out into public, I start blocking? Obviously, you know how to speak fluent for there are times you do it. Indeed, for most PWS, there are times that they do it consistently. Then again, there are times that you block and you usually do that consistently in …
By Sarah White
I was always led to believe that the key to fluency was practice. “I must use my smooth speech all the time; spontaneous speech inevitably leads to stuttering. If I practice with my speech buddy every morning on the phone, attended Speak Easy and Toastmasters meetings, record my speech to monitor difficult situations I would be fluent. I just have to find the time and energy.” Right? …
Bob Bodenhamer, D.Min.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
If every experience has a structure, then the experience of stuttering has a structure and so does the experience of stuttering resolution.
What is the structure of stuttering?
What is the structure of resolving stuttering?
After having explored this with numerous people, we first developed a profile on stuttering, then having working with numerous people who no longer stutter, we have formulated a …
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
The easiest thing in the world is to get into a fight with symptoms. We all do it. We all do it constantly. And no wonder–symptoms make our lives miserable. So it’s easy to get into a state where we hate the symptoms and go into battle with the symptoms. We fight with our negative feelings, we fight with our habitual patterns that hold us …
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
You have a very special human power or ability, a power unique to us humans, one that sets us apart from the animals and one that enables us to engage in “time-binding.”
What is this power? It is the linguistic power of speech. By words, language, and speech we use the power of symbols that can stand for and represent the thoughts in our heads─ the …
Bob Bodenhamer, D.Min.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Once you discover the fantastic realization that we can put mind-body states on top of each other to create a meta-relationship between one thought, feeling, or physiology to another and that doing such creates our frames of mind, then the questions about the art of meta-stating arise.
The subjective experience of stuttering occurs as a speech pattern when we begin to say something, but then feels “tied up” and unable to express ourselves in an easy and spontaneous way. Sometimes it feels as if we have two or more competing ideas or feelings fighting for dominance, each interrupting the other. At other times, it feels as if we’re fighting against a state of stress and anxiety. We …