The Dilemma Solved

By Bobby G Bodenhamer, D. Min.

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

First Published: “European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis”

Abstract

 

• Can hypnotherapy assist people who block and stammer (PWS)?
• Why is it that most PWS speak consistently fluent in some situations such as when alone, when speaking to a pet or when speaking to people with whom they experience comfort and safety in their presence; but, in other contexts they block and stammer regularly?
• Is a speech problem that is context dependent a physical problem or a cognitive problem?
• Why is it that when the PWS blocks and stammers there is always fear and/ or anxiety present but when they are fluent, fear and anxiety are absent?
• Is hypnotherapy effective with people suffering from fear and anxiety disorders?

Stammering is not primarily a physiological problem. Many speech pathologists have been taught that stammering is physical both in nature and causation. My work in applying the modeling tools of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Neuro-Semantics with people who stammer quite clearly demonstrates something different. Although stammering may have started with some neuro-motor dysfunction in early childhood, the fact that most people who stammer can speak fluently consistently in some contexts but not others indicate clearly that cognition plays a major role in the ongoing stammer. Indeed, I propose that blocking and stammering are just a form of a panic attack expressed in the muscles controlling breathing and speaking. And, as such, proper treatment for stammering should address cognition much more than physiology.

 

Therefore, if you are a hypnotherapy clinician and are very good at assisting people who suffer from deep seated (very well learned) fear and anxiety disorders, then you more than likely will be effective in assisting PWS in overcoming their stammering and in gaining more normal fluency.

My Story

I did not plan to work with people who block and stammer. Indeed, it happened quite by accident. I have been working in Neuro-Linguistic Programmer (NLP) since 1990. In 1996 my colleague, L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., and I started developing a model called Neuro-Semantics (NS).  Our work in this model came out of our experience in NLP and is an advancement of that model. As an NLP/NS practitioner, I have worked with hundreds of clients covering approximately three thousand hours of therapy. Working with fears, anxiety and phobias have been a major component of my work.

Some years ago, a sales seminar participant asked me if I could help people who stammer.  I told him that I didn’t know but I sure would be glad to give it a try. His son, a 25 or 26 year old came in for a two hour session. After one hour’s work we discovered that behind his blocking and stammering were some fears of speaking that rooted in childhood. Once he realized that he was mentally causing the stammer , he thanked me, paid me and left.  Though we had two hours scheduled, we finished in one hour.  As far as I know, he gained complete fluency. The key for him was his understanding that he was mentally causing the stammering and it wasn’t something physical and out of his control.

Excited about the results, I wrote up a case study of the therapy and sent it to Michael. He utilized his expertise and expanded the case study into an article entitled “Meta-Stating Stuttering” that I posted on the web site:

http://www.neurosemantics.com/Articles/Stuttering.htm

After posting the article, a friend of mind that I had worked with early in my practice contacted me. He had a stutter that we worked on years earlier but it hadn’t helped. After reading the article he called me and asked me if I had learned some new things. I told him that I sure had and for him to come on in. He came for a one hour session.  I saw him six months later and asked him how he was doing with the stuttering. He paused briefly and replied, “I guess I have forgotten to stutter.”  “Well,” I said, “That sure is a great thing to forget to do.

Needless to say, I was quite elated with the outcome. Then, in the spring of 2002, the breakthrough came. Linda Rounds of Indiana e-mailed me. In her search to overcome her stammering, she had read a work by Anthony Robbins at the recommendation of John Harrison. From Anthony Robbins she learned about NLP. She searched www.amazon.com for NLP books and found mind and Michael’s book, The User’s Manual for the Brain.  From that work she obtained my email address and emailed me asking me if I could assist her.  In just a few therapy sessions on the phone and some emails, Linda gained complete fluency. Wow, was I ever excited. It has been 2.5 years now and Linda is still fluent.

Linda and I wrote an article entitled “From Stuttering to Stability: A Case Study.”  John Harrison published the article in the National Stuttering Association newsletter, Letting Go and I posted it on our web site at:

http://www.neurosemantics.com/Articles/Stuttering-to-Stability.htm

Read that article as it will give you an idea of how I use hypnotic language in walking a person through NLP and Neuro-Semantic patterns.  This article really got a lot of attention. Since then I have worked with several people who block and stammer. One of the people that I assisted to fluency was Tim Mackesey, SLP.  Can you imagine the excitement I had in being able to assist a speech pathologist who had blocked and stuttered most of his life to fluency?  I was elated. Tim integrates NLP heavily into his therapy with all clients needing to change cognitive and affective issues related to their stuttering. Tim’s office is near Atlanta Georgia. His web site is:

http://www.stuttering-specialist.com.

Let me say up front, all have not attained fluency but many have. Importantly, out of all the people I have worked with, I have total confidence that ultimately all of them have the capacity to eventually attain fluency. This will necessitate their continuing working on their thinking.

Traditional Beliefs/Treatments for PWS

In the US especially, the common mode of treatment for PWS has been directed at the physiological aspects of stammering. Indeed, the Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) have been taught to assist the PWS in the formation of words, in breathing techniques, in avoiding certain words the PWS blocks on and in using substitute words for those words blocked on.

The belief among speech pathologists is that stammering is a physical and not a psychological problem.  In 2003 I spoke at an annual meeting of the National Stuttering Association (US) in Nashville, Tennessee. After I delivered my presentation that primarily asked why it is that PWS are fluent sometimes but not other times and as such; their problem was psychological in nature and therefore required psychological intervention for resolution, I received several angry responses from audience members. One speech pathologist stood up during the questioning time and with great intensity stated, “Everyone knows that the psychological theory for stammering was proven incorrect twenty years ago.”  Fortunately not all speech pathologists are taking that viewpoint and are asking themselves some serious questions about the origin of stammering.

Now, if you believe that stammering is a physiological problem, then that is exactly how you will treat it.  The sad part about this is that thousands of people who have grown up with this debilitating problem are confined to spend their lives with no hope of ever speaking normally. As you listen to their stories, you heart will break and traditional therapy provides them with little hope of being “normal.”

To me, normal speech is when you converse with someone but the “how” of your talking is not even in your mind. You are totally focused on the content of what you are saying and the person with whom you are speaking. Indeed, this is the goal of the hypnotherapist – to lead the PWS to the point that they are never concerned about “how” they are talking.  When they get to that point, they are fluent.

How Blocking Begins – Marking Out Dis-fluent Speech as Stammering

In working with people who block, I have discovered that usually the first thing the person does is to mentally mark out some childhood dis-fluency as “blocking” and/or “stammering.” This, in itself, is no problem. It is when the person comes to believe that blocking is something “bad” and to be feared that the problem begins to be perpetuated.

At the onset of the blocking, the person experiencing difficulty will punctuate dis-fluency as something bad.  Subsequent repetitions of punctuating difficulties as bad, makes the learning deeper until it gets grooved “into the muscles.”

When I say “grooved” into one’s muscles, or it is “in the muscles,” I am referring to the ability of our mind-body system to learn something unconsciously. Our nervous system is located throughout our body.  We have nerves “everywhere.” We believe that learnings literally become embodied into our muscle tissue. This is often referred to as “muscle memory.”  Do you type?  Then, if I were to ask you where the “R” key is, how will you find it?  Did you go to your left index finger and move it up to the left?  If so, that is an example of what we call “in the muscle” learning.

In every case that I have worked with, the roots of the individual’s blocking came from childhood.  However, sometimes the actual blocking does not appear until adolescence or even adulthood. Usually (but not always), when actual blocking begins in childhood, there will be a parent and/or an influential person or someone that “matters” who points out that the dis-fluency is not good and to be avoided.

Embodying Negative Emotions

I began noticing quite early in working with people who block and stammer that they tend to feel the fears, anxieties, etc. that are behind their blocking in the muscles that control breathing and/or speaking.  From this I concluded that blocking is very similar in structure to panic attacks and anxiety attacks. The treatment for blocking is exactly the same as the treatment for panic and anxiety attacks.

Quite often, from the experience with the adults, peers, or from the conclusions they make themselves, children who block define non-fluency or disfluency as something that they wish to avoid and/or control. The blocking does not only have the negative feedback from significant adults or from within themselves, but it also has connected to it the negative emotions from what the person perceived as the painful traumatic experiences that created the non-fluency to start with.

It is also connected with feelings of helplessness in not being able to speak when required to.  This leads to feelings that one is different or strange – something that children wish to avoid at all cost.

Important, when I say “trauma,” I am not necessarily meaning something terrible or tragic happened to the child. I am simply saying that the child interpreted the divorce of the parents, the lack of affection from dad, the lack of emotional support from mom, the emotional and physical abuse, etc as being most painful and threatening. The child did what all children tend to do – they personalize the external problems, then out of these experiences with the hurt installed in the muscles of breathing speaking, the child began to block. For fluency to become real in all contexts, these painful memories must be healed.

That mind can embody emotions is obvious in the most primitive and basic of all our mind-body functions, the Fight/Flight arousal syndrome.  And, you don’t have to be in actual danger to set it off.  All you have to do is think, remember, or imagine something fearful.  Then your body will oblige.  It is wired to respond.

Is it any surprise then that all of our emotions can and do become embodied in certain areas of our body?  Today, we even know that the patterning or habituation of response can become so incorporated that it becomes what we call “muscle memory.”  That is, the muscles “remember” how to run the pattern.  The neuro-pathways have “worn a groove” so to speak so that they have a readiness for certain responses.

For people who block, we find that the negative emotions are typically contained within the chest, neck and/or jaw.  Check this out for yourself.  Ask a person who blocks and stammers the following questions during your information gathering time:

1. What emotions are behind and within you blocking?
2. Where in your body do you feel these emotions?
3. Where in your body do you feel the fear and anxiety as you anticipate the possibility of blocking?
4. What do you feel about these feelings? (This last question will begin the process of eliciting the meaning frames that the PWS has placed around blocking and stammering and that “lock in the block” by holding it in place.)

That is what we’re talking about.

In my thirteen years of work in therapy with clients, I have literally asked these questions of hundreds of people who were suffering from some unwanted thought-feeling-emotional problem.  “Where in your body do you feel that emotion?” is a question that enables a person to begin to recognize the embodiment of emotions.

And out of those hundreds of times of asking the question, there have been very few times when I did not get an immediate and direct reply.  The individuals simply told me where they felt the emotion.  Often they pointed to the body parts where the emotion seems located.  This is a general rule of thumb for therapists.  If a person “feels” the negative emotion, they will point to the area of the body where they feel that emotion.  It is in the body (the soma) and so it is psycho-somatic in nature and form.

Consider a panic attack.  When a person has a panic attack, part of the diagnosis involves physical symptoms.  I certainly do not believe this diagnosis is the result of some accident. It is the result of what people experience, as is the case with blocking.  The DSM IV offers this description on diagnosing a panic attack:

A Panic Attack is a discrete period in which there is the sudden onset of intense apprehension, fearfulness, or terror often associated with feelings of impending doom.  During these attacks, symptoms such as shortness of breath, palpitations, chest pain or discomfort, choking or smothering sensations and fear of going “crazy” or losing control are present.

Note the physical manifestations of a panic attack.  Indeed, I have heard many PWS use the same type language in describing what they are feeling during a block. The feelings find expression in the body. Put those feelings in the muscles controlling breathing and speaking and you have a block. Most skilled hypnotherapists are effective in assisting clients with panic disorders and anxiety disorders.  If you are good at doing that, you will be able to assist most PWS towards fluency because the key is to assisting them in overcoming the fear and anxiety behind the blocking and stammering. The structure of panic attacks and blocking is the same; the expressions are different. Reframe or heal the emotions and the physical expression disappears.

The Neuro-Semantic Structure of Stammering

In the field of Neuro-Semantics we recognize the cognitive-behavioral principle that every experience has a structure. The facets of our mind-body-emotion system come together as variables in a system. This has many ramifications.

For one thing, it says that we can model the structure of experience. After all, if we can identify the component elements, arrange those variables in a sequence, identify the feedback and feed forward loops of the system, we can replicate that experience. Modeling in this way lies at the heart of NLP/Neuro-Semantics.

This explains why we can replicate excellence in communication, relating, managing, leading, inventing, creativity, and thousands of other experiences. This focus on modeling also means that every behavior and experience is a skill. Though it may be painful, harmful, and destructive (like manic-depression, schizophrenia, etc.) it has a structure and by exploring such experiences of pain has a structure and strategy that makes it work.

Figure 1.1 The Matrix of Meanings

Does it suggest anything else? Yes. It also suggests that by curiously wondering how something works we are able to thereby enter into that experience and be inside that matrix of frames. And it is in this way that we can develop many more choices about changing and transforming an experience.

Therefore to work with the mind-body-emotion system of human beings which we call the Neuro-Semantic System, we begin with that system and watch how it works

Figure 1.2 The Meaning Table for Creating Stammering

#1 Meaning/Value – Meaning Determines the Matrices 1. Classification of non-fluent speech as blocking/stammering 2. Associating blocking/stammering with fear and shame 3. Evaluating blocking/stammering as bad and unacceptable 4. Framing blocking/stammering has having the following meanings in the other matrices:
#2 Intention/Self	#2 Intention/Power	#2 Intention/Time	#2 Intention/Others	#2 Intention/World
(Attempted solutions that make the problem worse)
I don’t want to look like a fool? I will not show my vulnerabilities or weaknesses. I can’t handle criticism well. I’ve got to stop this. This shows me to be inadequate and flawed. I will “block” myself from stammering!	I am going to try to control this? I am going to try to control every word that comes out of my mouth. I have to catch this. I will do that by becoming very self aware of my speech. I have to try really hard not to block and stammer or I will look foolish.	I am going to not repeat the past. I am not going to make a fool of myself with my speech anymore. If I block any emotion in this moment, it will give me more control.	I am not going to attract attention. I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities. I will not give others to chance to laugh at me. I will not let them see me struggle.	I will not do anything that will draw attention to me in my work, career, etc. I will avoid speaking situations that will attract attention to me. I will try to be successful by avoiding all opportunities to speak.
#3 Self	#4 Power	#5 Time	#6 Others	#7 World
I am flawed. There is something wrong with me. I am broken. I am not enough. I am inadequate. I am flawed. I am foolish. I am worthless. I am insecure. I am timid. I am shy. I am anxious. I am tense. I am “shamed.” I am “possessed.” I can’t be enough. I am ashamed. I am angry. I am abnormal. I can’t be enough. My value is in my performance.	I have lost control. I am frustration I am vulnerable. I need to change. I can’t be enough. I am terrified of speaking to ____________. I need to be respected and loved in order to speak fluently. (Other) I should be doing better. I got to do something. I got to get it done. “It” (becoming fluent) works for everybody but me. I cannot order in a restaurant. I cannot introduce myself.	This is permanent.I am doomed. It has always been this way. I am not making progress. I got to do something. I got to get it done. I can’t take my time to say what I want to say (sense of being rushed).	It is not OK to stammer. I am fearful of being rejected. Other’s expectation from me must be met. I can’t measure up to their expectations. I am always fearful of being hurt and not being validated I feel isolated. I isolate myself so I won’t get involved in a relationship. I am less than. I look foolish. You are always judged by how you talk. People validate or determine my worth. What people say about me becomes my truth.	I should be doing better.I got to do something. I got to get it done. “The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’” I won’t succeed. I am out of control

(See Figure 1.1). What follows here begins with state and then adds state upon state to create the experience that we call “stammering.”

This means that there is a non-stammering mentality (fluency) just as there is a stammering mentality. In what follows I will be using the 7 Matrices of the Mind Model – a Neuro-Semantic model developed in 2002 that structures the NLP and NS patterns (Hall, 2002). We use this model for coaching, counseling, modeling, and neuro-semantic profiling. Accordingly, we here use it to make explicit the stammering system to provide systemic understanding of the semantics (meanings) that get into the body and nervous system (neuro-) to embody “stammering” so that it becomes part of physiology and a style of moving through the world.

How the Matrix Work to Create Stammering

In Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2 I illustrate how after the PWS punctuates/classifies non-fluency as stammering (Figure 1.2), the individual will associate fear and shame as to what stammering might mean. The PWS evaluates blocking/stammering as bad and unacceptable thus that which had no meaning now has meaning. Nothing has meaning to anyone until a person gives it meaning.

In blocking and stammering some very unuseful but necessary meanings must come into play for the person to block for they don’t block in all places all the time – it must be a cognitive process and not just a physical process. Obviously, the person does not want to block/stammer so an outcome (#2 Intention; Figures 1.1 and 1.2)) of not stammering becomes priority and drives (frames) the other meanings given to the matrices. The person fears what stammering may mean and thus creates a driving urge to not stammer.  Thus the PWS attempts to “block” stammering because they have defined stammering as being bad and unacceptable.

The person doesn’t want to block (#2 Intention Matrix) and stammer because in their view to do so means that they are deficient in person (#3 Self Matrix), powerless to stop doing it (#4 Power Matrix), believe the problem is permanent (#5Time Matrix), define themselves by how they fear other people are judging them (#6 Other Matrix) and hence they tend to view their world as a hostile place (#7 World Matrix). Their purpose of not wanting to stammer creates a frame of fear and anxiety which determines the other matrices.  So, all of this fear and anxiety is empowered further by the PWS’ meanings in the remaining matrices. They act as a higher level lever that “locks in the block”.

Importantly, as I try to show in both Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2 the “Intention/Purpose” meaning serves as a filter or driver for all the other meanings in the matrix.  That is why in Figure 1.1 “Meaning” is at the top for the meaning given to any experience determines everything else in the matrix. But, as illustrated, “Intention” is just under “Meaning” and the remaining matrices are under “Intention”. This is due to our belief that the meanings given to what we want, to our purpose, our purpose/ outcome/ desire frames acts as a filter for determining the meaning of the other matrices. In Figure 1.2 as you look in the first row below #1 Meaning/Value you will see that “#2 Intentions” is placed above each of the other matrices.

I shall illustrate. In the “Other Matrix” the PWS has a belief (and a fear) that they will not let other people see their vulnerabilities as a PWS. Indeed, with the PWS, this is an overriding fear that most of them carry. Because they have already given the meaning (#1 Meaning) that their dis-fluent speech is rightly called stammering; they have associated stammering with fear and shame; it is a bad and unacceptable behavior; this results in a strong fear of actually stammering which other people will view as unacceptable. (PWS, like most people, are good at Mind-Reading.)  Indeed, in their fear of being judged by others they in turn “judge” others.

So, having this fear of stammering (#2 Intention Matrix), and looking through those eyes, they see that other people (#6 Other Matrix) will reject them; they will judge them as being less than “normal” people all because they hold the belief that what other people think of them determines their sense of worth and value (#3 Self Matrix).  The meanings given to their relationship with most people basis itself on their belief that stammering is not OK (#1 Meaning Matrix) and that they want to avoid it at all cost and if they do stammer, other people will reject them and so on. In Figure 1.2, you will find numerous meanings that I have elicited from at least 40 PWS.

The “Layering” of Meanings
Creating Anticipatory Anxiety About Stammering
Which Almost Guarantees Stammering!

The PWS will layer the fear of blocking and stammering with all these meanings. These meanings came from one of my clients:

1. People judge the content of what I am saying so I must always be
   right. When I am uncertain of my rightness, I block.
2. I have the ability to be 100% block free (I just don’t know how to
   do it).
3. The audience overwhelms me, like I am being attacked. This causes
   me to block.
4. I will stutter when I speak.
5. I need to be respected and loved in order to be fluent.
6. I need to be perfect.
7. I am unwilling to feel comfortable with my emotions.
8. I need to try hard to impress.
9. I need to have control. My life is totally out of control.
10. I expect others to judge me harshly for I judge myself harshly.
11. People judge the content of what I am saying so I must always be
    right. When I am uncertain of my rightness, I block.
12. I have the ability to be 100% block free. I just don’t know how to
    do it.
13. The audience overwhelms me, like I am being attacked. This causes
    me to block.
14. I will stutter when I speak.
15. I need to be respected and loved in order to be fluent.

You may wish to go through the above list and identify which matrix each belongs.  This client was layering her mind one on top of the other with these limiting beliefs and all of it was about one thing – how she thinks about the possibility of blocking and stammering. Gregory Bateson (1972) shares in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, that higher mental levels modulate and change lower mental levels. Michael Hall (1995, 2000) has taken the theoretical teachings of Bateson and “brought them down to earth” in a usable fashion. Hall explains that the “higher levels” that Bateson was talking about included the mind’s ability to have one thought about another thought and the second thought that is about the first thought serves as a higher level to the first thought and will indeed modulate or change the first thought.  Do what?

I shall illustrate. Suppose you are in a state of fear. Your thinking is about fearing something.  From that thought you start layering your mind with the thought “I can’t handle this?”  And, then, you layer that thought with, “I am a worthless idiot.”  What will happen to the original thought of fear by layering that thought with all these negative thoughts?  The fear will increase. Indeed, that kind of thinking leads to paranoia.

However, if instead, you layered that first thought of fear with, “I am a courageous person.” “I can handle this situation. I have done it before.” What happens to “fear” when “courage” is layered on top of it?  The “fear” will change. It will begin to ease and if the courageous state is strong enough, it will blow that fear away. Bang!!! That’s right! When one thought is applied to another thought, Hall (1995, 2000) refers to this as Meta-Stating as the previous thought-feeling state is modulated by the second thought-feeling state.

Our minds tend to not stop with one thought; our minds tend to keep on having thoughts about thoughts. In looking at the computer monitor as I type this, my first thought about the computer monitor was the text that I am typing on the monitor. But my mind didn’t stop there; my mind instantaneously went to the next thought about that: “This is useful information for the hypnotherapists.” Neither did my mind stop there for my next thought about the previous thought was, “The skilled hypnotherapists as abilities help a lot of suffering people who live daily with the horrors of stammering.”  The next thought was really a “feeling of excitement and passion” about this material and how it can provide realistic hope for a lot of people and bring the hypnotherapists into areas of work that they may have never previously known.

Meta-Stating the Fear

The mind creates our internal states through this process of layering one thought-feeling on top of another thought-feeling – layering one state of mind on top of another state of mind.  This is true for bad states as well as good states.  In bringing healing to the negative states, I follow the following simple model:

1.   Associate the person into the problem state.

2.   Dissociate the person from the problem state.

3.   Lead the person to discover internal resources while mentally “outside” or dissociated from the problem state.

4.  Associate the person into the resource state and then lead them to apply (Meta-State) the resource state to the problem state – i.e. bring the resource state to bear onto the problem state.  This can be done visually, auditorily or kinesthetically. Most PWS have a strong feeling of fear and anxiety. Lead them to access a resource state like courage or faith until they “feel it” and then lead them to move the resource state into the same location as the problem state of fear. “What happens to fear when it is embedded with courage and faith?”

The Hidden Purposes for PWS – More about the Intention Matrix

During the last two years of doing a lot of work with PWS, I have come to appreciate just how the stammering seeks to serve a positive purpose for the PWS. In NLP, we believe that every behavior has a positive intent. Now, by positive intent, I am not talking about every behavior having a correct intent or a morally acceptable positive intent; I am referring to our belief that when the person learned the behavior that that behavior at that time was that person’s way of trying to get something that the person felt like they needed. Such thinking is usually in the unconscious and oft times “deep” in the unconscious.

I often hear the objection, “Well, if every behavior has a positive intent, how can you explain an adult molesting a child?”  Good question. Even in that gross and deplorable situation, you will find a positive intent in the person’s behavior. I know for I have worked therapeutically with several and in every case there was a positive intent behind the behavior. Most child abusers have been abused themselves. The dysfunction of molesting a child is oft a perverted attempt to receive and even give love. The roots of this go back to the person’s childhood where they learned this from what was happening to them.

Well, what could be the positive intent behind blocking and stammering?  I have thus far discovered four that are prevalent:

Protection – By far, the one that I hear the most is that the stammering serves as a protector from being hurt. The PWS learned in childhood that to talk meant pain. Sometimes this is just from normal conversation. The child would not be permitted to speak. “Children are to be seen and not heard.” Have you ever heard that one?  Well, when that is taken to the extremes and there is much pain associated with self-expression, the child may just decide to “block” speaking. And, the world gains another stammerer.

Also, blocking and stammering serves as a protector for some PWS because they grew up in an environment that somehow was painful for the child. This is more common.  I have found that the degree of pain varies from something as simple as pain from a one time event at a critical time in speech development to pain from a childhood filled with all kinds of emotional and physical abuse.  I have worked with PWS clients who’s blocking and stammering were encased in a sea of mental frames of hurt, pain, abuse, sorrow, rejection, fear and so on. Many sessions over many months were required to bring the person to a state of equilibrium with the pain of the past. Skilled hypnotherapists will know exactly what I am talking about as you have encountered such mental frames of mind many times.  The treatment for stammering is the same as with other clients overwhelmed with such pain. Even with such treatment, not all PWS have overcome their stammering because the problem is so well learned and “in the muscles”. But, fortunately a significant number have become more fluent.

Stammering serves for some PWS as a protector from the fear of failure.  The PWS will hold the belief that as long as they have the stammer, it provides them a convenient excuse to not to take responsibility for their lives. Stammering becomes a handy “whipping boy” for the PWS. On the other side of that, I have found that stammering served as a protector from the fear of success.  Due to unconscious beliefs learned in childhood, the PWS was fearful that they may become a success. Well, what is wrong with that?  Success meant more responsibility and then the fear of failure would come in, “I may not be good enough. Look at me. I stammer. No one will let me continue to be a success.” Thus the person gets into a vicious loop – “If I succeed, I might fail.” “If I succeed, it will not be good enough.”  So, stammering serves as a protector against fearing both failure and success – if you don’t do anything you want fail at it nor will you succeed in it.

In working with PWS, there are an amazing number of similar beliefs held by them. And, one that jumps out constantly is the “need for perfection”. This perfectionism mentality is always present in the fear of failure and fear of success looping.  Look for the roots of perfectionism in childhood. Usually there will be a parent or both parents that the person could never please.  In other cases, the PWS will develop a sense of guilt that if they were “good enough” then this awful affliction of stammering would not be a problem. Having such a dis-fluent problem in childhood leads a lot of children to do what children do well – they personalize it.  “It must be my fault. There is something wrong with me. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t have this stammer.”

Control – Second to protection, I hear the need for control as a higher positive intent/ purpose for stammering.  Have you ever known a control freak?  Well, anytime you find a control freak, you can bet that that person’s childhood was to some degree out of control. Now, to the adult mind, it may not seem to have been out of control but to the mind of that child it was. So, the reasoning goes like this, “This family is out of control. Because this family is out of control, I don’t feel secure. Security is an absolute must for a child to feel loved, comfortable, happy, etc.  Since this family is out of control and there is nothing that I can do with it, I will control my speech. I can stammer. Just watch me stammer. See, I can bring some control into my life!”

 

Attention – Another unconscious purpose for stammering is that it gets attention. I was the middle child in our family. And, I didn’t believe that I was getting enough attention. So, I learned if I rebelled, I got attention. Now, it was negative attention but it was still attention – negative attention is better than no attention for some of us.  Well, the PWS learns as a child  that this behavior called blocking and stammering sure can get attention. It not only gets attention at home; it also gets attention at school. So, such thinking can serve as another reason to “lock in the block.”

Revenge – Using stammering as a means of revenge is not common but it does happen. Again, this problem roots in childhood.  The few times that I have found this purpose, it was a way for the child to “get back” at the parents for the way the child perceived himself as being treated. One PWS said, “They (the parents) made life uncomfortable for me; I am going to make their life uncomfortable by blocking and stammering.”

 

How do you find the unconscious purposes of blocking and stammering (or any other behavior)? Usually you can do this quite simply by using what we call “chunk up” language – language that will send the person’s mind to higher and higher thinking. The simple question to ask the PWS is: “If your stammering had a purpose, what purpose would that be?”  The question contains the presupposition that the person’s behavior of stammering may have a purpose. By the way, it is rare for the person to not give you a purpose. The fact is that all behaviors have a purpose. If they didn’t have a purpose or function, they would quit behaving. Now, this question may have to be repeated several times for their unconscious mind to hear the question as the conscious mind gets over the shock of even considering that stammering has a purpose.

In going for their purpose, have the PWS associate fully into the fear of stammering before questioning them. The more they feel the part, the easier for the unconscious mind to provide answers. It is simple to do. Just ask the person:

• “What is the purpose or intention of stammering?”
• “What is stammering trying to do for you?”
• “What does stammering want for you that is important?”
• “What would stammering have to give up which is important to you in order for you to stop stammering?”

One of the major keys to doing therapy, I believe, is to find out the purpose of the problem behaviors, heal the hurt behind the problem behavior and then find healthier ways for them to meet the needs of the original purpose the stammering.  If the purpose is for protection, the part responsible for that needs to come to understand that the person has survived childhood and now has adult resources to protect them. If the PWS that you are working with is still a child, find ways in the child’s life to re-assure the child that they are protected. This may require family therapy.

Summary

There is hope for the PWS. There is hope because their experience has structure as do all experiences. That they have gotten certain ideas incorporated or embodied into their very neurology and physiology does not mean it is not psychological. It only says that it has a lot of habit strength and that it now operates apart from their conscious awareness. Structure means that we can intervene at numerous places in the system, sometimes reversing the structure and sometimes messing it up.

References:

American psychiatric association diagnostic criteria, from DSM-IV (1994). Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association.

Bateson, Gregory. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballatine.

Bodenhamer, Bobby G. (2004) Mastering blocking and stuttering: A guide to gaining fluency. Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing. (due Oct, 2004)

Greenfield, Susan A. (1995).  Journey to the centers of the mind: toward
a science of consciousness. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Harrison, John C. (1989/ 2002). “How to conquer your fears of speaking before people: a complete public speaking program plus a new way to look at stuttering.” Anaheim Hills, CA:

Hall, L. Michael. (1995/2000). Dragon slaying: From dragons to princes. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (2001). Games for mastering fear. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications

Hall, L. Michael (2002).  The matrix model: The 7 matrices of neuro-semantics. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael (1995, 2000). Meta states: Mastering the higher states of your mind. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications

Psycho-Social Stress and Speech Dysfluency

Bernard-thomas Hartman, Ph.D., FAAMD

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici

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 this problem which I believe addresses the root cause of the problem for most, (if not all), people who stutter.

I mentioned, previously, that I stutter when I speak. Early in my life, what used to really nag me was that I spoke fluently – when I was alone. When I started my university studies, I attended speech therapy for my problem. I experienced, first hand, the main therapy techniques and found them, as a ‘stutterer’, inadequate in that they didn’t consistently aid me in my out-of-clinic experiences. I read, extensively, about stuttering and through my own clinical experiences, found that the methods that were applied would fail to consistently improve the client’s fluency outside the clinic. Or that the effectiveness of the method would be eroded, over time, by the client’s loss of sensitivity to the application as they became too accustomed to it.

The successes achieved in the clinic were decidedly inconsistent with the experiences of the client outside of the clinic. This was due to the fact that the adversities of the psycho-social stresses of everyday life were not present in the clinic and could not be readily, or at least convincingly, simulated.

As a young man, I used to memorize phrases, tracts of Shakespeare, anything, and recite them in the mirror, thus, proving to myself that I possessed this gift of fluent speech. But I learned that it takes two to stutter. My fluency is wholly dependant on who I perceive to be listening, and the gravity of the message that I want to express.

It wasn’t until I was taking my master’s degree, and had gained enough experience with other people who stutter that I became convinced that the problem is psycho-social, and that this problem may manifest itself as any of the ‘classic’ stuttering behaviors (tonic, clonic, etc.).

I’m an unrepentant fan of masking devices and have seen them to be a considerable aid in eliciting fluent speech in my clients. But this fluency is generally short-lived. This is, perhaps, as it should be. Masking devices and other external stimuli should only be applied as one would a crutch. Get the person back on their feet and experiencing positive episodes of fluent speech.

Under varying levels of stress, everyone is predisposed to exhibit stuttering speech behaviors. In other words, very stressful situations will exceed anyone’s threshold for maintaining fluent speech. It’s simply a matter of the level of stress versus the individual’s threshold for maintaining fluent speech.

People, whom we term to be ‘stutterers’, have a lower stress threshold than most people with regards to maintaining fluent speech. The severity of a person’s stuttering behaviors is determined by the level of psycho-social stress that it takes to disrupt the person’s innate ability to speak fluently. And with each episode of disfluency that the stutter experiences, this threshold for maintaining fluent speech dips a little lower.

The reason for this, is that the stutterer begins to anticipate failure and tweaks up the psycho-social stress related to the encounter. In addition, the more time that the stutterer is allowed to prepare for the encounter, (and anticipate failure), the more this tension tends to grow. The constant conditioning of anticipation of failure, and then the fruition of these anxieties creates the basis for habitual stuttering behaviors.

So how do we break this cycle of anticipation of failure/realization of failure…?

For me, that has always been the big question. How to reduce the amount of psycho-social stress that a stutterer experiences when he or she needs to say something to somebody? How can we diffuse the tension of the moment for the stutterer?

As I mentioned previously, there are two parties involved in every stuttering episode – the stutterer and the listener. In the event that a stutterer needs to say something to someone they aren’t familiar with, (a waitress, prospective employer, policeman…) the stutterer generally doesn’t know how this listener is going to respond to the realization that stuttering behavior is occurring in the conversation, but will be anticipating any or all of the negative responses that they have experienced previously.

As for the listener, most people have a streak of goodness/understanding and are happy to do their ‘good deed for the day’ (for lack of a better term) when dealing with a handicapped person. They generally respond to handicapped people with an extra degree of patience and understanding. But what most people find awkward or uncomfortable is to be thrust into the position where they are made aware of a handicap as it manifests itself and they are not prepared for the situation.  And a stutterer, engaged in speaking, is acutely aware of the listener’s discomfort which only adds to the problem.

The first thing, I believe, is to understand that a stutterer is a person whose communication skills are handicapped. Like a mute or person who is hard of hearing their communication skills are impeded, but unlike the former examples, the handicap of stuttering speech may be transitory if the psycho-stresses which cause the condition can be relieved.

When I was a young therapist, I attempted to take on this problem by ‘padding’ my clients’ social environment. I did this by taking the time to meet with spouses, employers, teachers, etc. and counsel them on how they might help relieve some of the tension that may occur in their discourses with my client as well as ways that they can encourage and empower them to communicate more frequently. The important thing is to allow a potential listener the time to prepare mentally for the role that they must assume in a conversation with a person who has a communication handicap. I found this to be a considerable aid to my therapy, but it eventually became impracticable due to my client load.

I propose that the same effect may be achieved by openly establishing with the listener, at the point of contact, that the speaker suffers from a handicap that affects their speech. This can be accomplished the same way that many people with other communication difficulties inform a listener that they have a problem – with a little card that is presented to the listener before communication begins.

What this will do is de-fuse a great deal of the psycho-social stress both for the stutterer and the listener. The stutterer can relax considerably knowing that his/her ‘cover’ is blown and that the listener knows that the stutterer may experience difficulty in communicating what they have to say. The listener has time to prepare themselves for such an event and accept assuming the role of a person attending to someone who is challenged in this way. To the stutterer’s advantage, most people are perfectly willing to display their sense of humanity if forewarned. I believe that this is the closest we can come to re-creating the dynamic available in a clinical setting and reinforce the positive experiences that the client receives from their therapist’s clinical programs and applications.

About the author:

Dr. Hartman, now retired, has served as the director of Speech and Hearing pathology for several institutions during his career and finally as professor and director of the Speech and Hearing department (23 years) at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. He is the author of ‘The Neuropsychology of Developmental Stuttering’ as well as other works. He now lives with his family in Norway.

By Bobby Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici 

In Part I we learned:

• Most PWS can speak freely in some contexts and block consistently in other contexts. A model about blocking and stuttering must take this into account and seek to explain it.  NLP/NS presents one model for this purpose.
• Our perceptual maps are a product of our creating movies inside our head. The movie will be made up of pictures, sounds and/or feelings (Smells and taste play a lesser part.)
• In themselves, our mental movies have no meaning. We supply meaning by defining the movie with “words”. Thus our mental maps are made up of our movies and our language meanings.
• Alfred Korzybski’s statement that “The Map is not the Territory” at least partially explains how the same person can block consistently in some contexts, yet consistently speak freely in other contexts.
• Unconsciously the PWS confuses their perceptual mapping with what is going on in the territory of their world.
• Think about it. All the pictures, sounds and feelings in our head are not what they represent in the world or in the territory.  They are just symbols of what we have experienced from the world/ territory. Our words whereby we create meaning are just symbols of our experience of the territory. Our maps are created metaphors about our world and our experiences of the world. They are “not real” but only as real as we make them.
• When the PWS blocks, he most often operates from a perceptual map that he developed in childhood. Instead of operating from a perceptual map of an adult ‘who knows how to talk’, the meaning he places on the context in the territory that he finds himself triggers him back to negative childhood experiences such as being made fun of due to his blocking.

Part II

People who make mental changes believe that “the map is not the territory” or “the menu is not the meal;” and they believe it is their map and their map alone that they operate from.  This is another way of saying that our perception is not reality. It is only our perception of it. However, because it is our perception (our internal representation and conceptual meanings) it is what we operate from.  It doesn’t matter how accurately it maps (perceive) our present reality. We will operate from our perceptions as governed by our higher-level frames of mind.

Michael Hall in article entitled “Seven Key Distinctions of Masterful Communication” at

http://www.neurosemantics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=445&Itemid=48

states:

“The map is not the territory” summarizes the common-sense wisdom that a map never is the territory it is designed to represent.  The menu is not the meal; the sex manual is not love making; the photo is not the person.  These are different phenomenon.  They operate at different levels and in different dimensions.

“So simple, yet so profound.  So simple and yet so easy to forget.  How and when do we forget it?  When we think (and feel) that what we think (our mapping), what we perceive, what we believe in, what we value, what we identify with, etc. is what is real.  That’s the delusion.  Yet it never is; it cannot be.  At best it can be a good, useful, and fairly accurate map about it.

(Note: I [Bob] believe that the reality that Michael here speaks about explains where many in the world of the PWS find themselves. Holding to such beliefs as ‘stuttering is not a psychological phenomenon’, exemplifies what Korzybski so warned against – the identifying of a person with a behavior. Holding to such beliefs foregoes the possibility of making new discoveries in the realm of cognition around blocking.)

“But when we forget, we identify. We identify map and territory.  What I think about something is real, is the final word, is absolute, is beyond question, is unquestionable, etc.  And this describes the concrete thinker, the absolutist, the pulpit pounding pundit who has “the answers,” the guru who demands blind and unquestioning obedience, the fundamentalist in any and every system (Christian, Moslem, Liberal, Conservative, Political, etc.).

“Map is all of the stuff inside, from the way the outside world impacts upon your senses and sense receptors (eyes, ears, skin, etc.).  Map is all of the ideas, beliefs, understandings, feelings, memories, etc. that you create inside about the outside world.  We do not deal with the world directly, but indirectly.  We interface with the electromagnetic spectrum as mediated through our sense receptors, neuro-pathways, brain cortexes, beliefs, belief systems, etc.  Territory is the outside world, all of the experiences, words, events, and happenings “out there.”

“The masterful communicator knows that all of our mapping is fallible and is, at its highest development, still our best guess.  He or she also knows that the value of a map lies in its usefulness, lies in it being able to provide us some navigational guidance as we move through the world and experiences.  Does the map correspond well enough so that we can use it to direct our thoughts and actions?  Does it facilitate me having the experiences I want to have?  To achieve the things I want to accomplish?

“How well do you recognize that all of your mental mapping about things is just that, a map?  How much is this your frame of mind?  How quick are you to explore and ask questions rather than go into “deity mode” of telling, demanding, or giving advice?  How grounded is your recognition that your feelings are functions of your maps, not of the world?  How intuitive have you driven in this distinction so that you recognize that any and every emotion is the difference between your map of the world and your experience in the world?

“These are questions that help us benchmark where we are in our own development of making the map/territory distinction and meta-stating ourselves with this as a premise for moving through the world so that it becomes our in-knowing (intuition) as we communicate.”

What does this mean to the PWS? This means that:

• Those PWS who grow in the freedom of verbally sharing themselves recognize the value of re-creating their map (perception) that accurately, as far as symbolically possible, maps the present moment. We are a “symbolic class of life.” We do that with our mental movies and words acting as “symbols” from our experience of our world through our five senses. But, these are just symbols about our world. They are not the world. We get into trouble when we confuse the two and label our “symbols” as being “real.” We also create trouble for ourselves when we think that they are a totally accurate map of our world.When we consciously or unconsciously operate from frames of mind that we learned in childhood, we certainly are not operating from a map that even comes close to accurately mapping out the adult world we now live in. This is the root of most problems, if not all of them. It is most certainly the root cause of many PWS operating in their adult world from their blocking strategy rather than their adult fluency strategy. Unconsciously the PWS is living in their past which is usually their childhood.

Understandably some PWS find such statements quite irritating and many reject such diagnosis as non-credible.  Therefore, to understand my point recall the last time you blocked. How did it feel? Did you feel powerful or powerless?  How old did you feel while you were in that block?  Did you feel your present age or younger maybe even much younger?

• Those who change their thinking by recognizing that their map is not the territory will eliminate the problem of cause-effect in their lives. What does this mean?  It means that the individual who understands and accepts that their internal map/perception is not, and cannot be, the territory (the external world) will stop the foolishness of believing other people control her mind without her permission.  No one can make you believe or feel anything you choose not to believe or feel. That “other” person whom you fear will judge you should you block has absolutely no power over you without your permission.

In a recent correspondence with Christine on the PWS E-Mail list, Christine stated:

“Although the ‘map is not the territory’ in the semantic sense, I’m inclined to think that the map indeed affects the territory as well, most certainly if the territory is our brain processes. Different thoughts will create patterns that eventually affect brain chemistry, hence, will affect the territory. It’s kind of like how the observer will affect the object according to quantum theory…

“In a way, it makes no sense to stutter regardless of the situation, unless stuttering is all we can do – which it is, of course, not. Also, the situation is never exactly the same twice, but yet we stutter if there’s a resemblance. Resemblance is the most illusory element here (much more so than the initial map of the territory), thus, it’s in many ways the creation of resemblance we must alter. Resemblance is a map about a map, and by definition, over that we should have the most power to change.”

In part of my response to her insightful post, I shared:

Korzybski’s point was that the map and the territory are two distinct entities and cannot be the same.

And, yes, the one affects the other. However, we have much control about how the one affects the other.

The sub-title of Korzybski’s book Science and Sanity is “An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics”. Korzybski aimed to defuse the Cause-Efffect ideology so prevalent in Western Cultures. Aristotelian thinking is “Cause-Effect” thinking.  Non-Aristotelian thinking is the living with an awareness that much of our perceptual mapping is by “choice” and is not “caused” by the territory or the world.

Children do cause-effect thinking:  “Mom and dad divorced. I caused it for there is something wrong with me.” As we mature, we take responsibility for our own thinking and understand the fallacy of cause-effect thinking.

We get into trouble when we hold onto beliefs that just because something has happened in our territory, we “have to” respond a certain way.

In the world of mental health there is a Diagnostic Book called the DSM IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  This book provides all the present diagnosis for mental disorders.  When a person is diagnosed as suffering from a Social Anxiety Disorder (which much of blocking is in my opinion) and then that person “identifies” with that diagnosis, then that is cause effect.  “I have a Social Anxiety Disorder. I am ill.”  That person has taken a diagnosis of a “process” and then jumped to identifying with it and thus the person “becomes” the disorder.  It is that kind of childish thinking that Korzybski attempted to bring a halt to.  He called such identifying as “unsanity”.

Another example would be, “I grew up in a dysfunctional family therefore I am dysfunctional.” Another one, “I have my father’s temper.”

Such thinking is cause-effect thinking.  It ends up nominalizing (or making a process real by labeling it) behaviors and identifying with it. This tends to lock the person into the behavior.

All behaviors are a result of the mental processing of our minds through our movies and our languaging. It is all a process. It isn’t set in concrete. It can be changed.  Because you learned how to block as a child does not mean you must block the rest of your life.

Just think how much “not blocking” would affect your view of the world that you live in.  Korzybski would say that the world or the territory doesn’t cause your blocking; you trigger your blocking with unconscious learning. It is unconscious. It can be quite a task to learn how not to do it but you can do it. You are in charge of your thinking. Nobody else is driving your bus. You are driving your own bus.

• They recognize that the words and images inside their heads are not “real” in the sense that they are absolute or unchangeable. They are changeable. They are just “symbols” of the external world.  We have instruments that will detect the nerve cells and the neuro-transmitters that allow one nerve cell to communicate with another nerve cell. However, can neuro-science go inside the brain and find/ measure a picture, a sound, a feeling or a word?  No, they are “abstractions” of the mind. Our conceptual states are generated at the moment of thought and then they disappear until we think the thought again.  Because the images and word meanings inside our head are not “real” in the sense that they are set in concrete, they only have the reality we give them. In understanding that the “map” is not the “territory”, the PWS will know that those fearful mental movies cannot harm them without their permission.

When to Block and when not to Block

This clarifies what is taking place when the brain knows not to block and when the brain blocks.  For, when the PWS is in a context that is not threatening to their verbally sharing themselves, the mental-movies and the language structures are not there for they haven’t triggered the neural networks that create the movies and the language structures. Now,  the neural networks are there but are not activated thus the movies and the language of stuttering are not present – the PWS now speaks fluently without those old movies of the past creating so much fear and anxiety that triggers blocking.

On-the-other-hand, when the PWS is in a context that threatens their personal sharing of themselves the neural networks of blocking fire and bingo, there are the movies and the language structures that serve to hold the blocking in place. In most cases when this happens, the PWS mentally ceases being a resourceful adult and they associate into childhood memories operating from the mental movies and language structure of when they were a child. Unconsciously the PWS becomes a child with the mental mapping of a child. Those old images of being made fun of by peers; those old images of blocking in front of the class; those old images of hearing dad say “spit it out son, spit it out” suddenly become real and the person “blocks” their personal sharing for it is threatening to share oneself.

It is really true, “The ‘map’ is not the ‘territory’.

Back to Part I

By Bobby Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici 

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 certain contexts.  What is going on?

Could we not summarily state that your mind-body system has basically two different strategies when it comes to speaking? You have a strategy for speaking fluently and you have a strategy for blocking.  Well, what determines whether I speak from the fluency strategy or when I speak from the blocking strategy?  I sure don’t want to block but I can’t help it. What is going on?

To find the answer, let’s not study the behavior – the blocking. I will leave that to those more knowledgeable of the physiology involved in blocking. Let’s look at what is behind the blocking. How does your brain know when to tell you mouth to speak fluently and how does it know when to tell your mouth to block?  How does your brain know which strategy to fire? I mean, after all, you already know how to speak fluently. Let’s seek to understand why you can’t speak fluently all the time.

To do this, let’s look at what we basically know about how the brain creates meaning for I am convinced that it is the meaning given to a particular context that determines whether you speak from your fluency strategy or your blocking strategy. Ask yourself: “What kind of meaning(s) do I place on those times when I am fluent that permit me to be relaxed and calm that allows me to speak without fear and anxiety about speaking?”  And, “What meaning(s) do I place on those contexts where I block all the time? How do I mentally frame these contexts so that I experience fear and anxiety about speaking that leads me right into blocking?” “What are the differences in meaning between these two contexts?”

A Little History

At the beginning of the 20^th century, the Behaviorist explained behavior from a stimulus-response perspective. Something happens that triggers the person to respond a certain way. Later Cognitive Psychology began to look beyond just the basic stimulus-response model and they started talking about other variables specifically cognitions – language. The Cognitive Scientist wanted to know more about what was going on with a person’s thinking that led to a certain response from a particular trigger. This model was later advanced by Bandler and Grinder who specified cognitions or thoughts as a product of our five senses (see, hear, feel, smell and taste) plus the ability to create meaning with words.  These co-founders of Neuro-Linguistics (NLP) determined that we create thinking via the movies (pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and/or taste) that we create inside our heads and, importantly, the meanings we give the movie via language. This comprised the “language of the mind”.

It is this “language of the mind” that allows the NLP Practitioner to understand just what a person is doing inside their head in order to create a certain response to a certain signal. The movies and the language are the basis of all thinking – all perception. In NLP we refer to this phenomenon as mental mapping or just “mapping”.  All behavior has behind it a mental map comprised of movies and/or language. Of these, the meaning created by “words” is where the difference that makes the difference is at.

You have a set of meanings that drive fluency and you have a set of meanings that drive blocking. You have a “mental map” for each behavior and it is this mapping that determines whether you block or whether you speak with a naturally free expression called fluency. No matter the original cause of your blocking, for sure, whether you block or whether you speak fluently is a product of how you map out the situation that you find yourself in.

When our mental map of the world is fearful, limiting, impoverished, childish, anxious, weak and unresourceful, etc., the world becomes a fearful and dangerous place. We do not believe that we have the resources to live in the world as a complete and happy person who verbally expresses himself with great freedom of expression. Such impoverished thinking will trigger fear and anxiety that will trigger the blocking strategy.

On the other hand, if our mental map of the world is one of excitement, opportunity, and enrichment we can face this world with great resourcefulness and strength. When we operate off such mapping, we not only do not experience childish fear and anxiety, we experience great anticipation, joy and excitement over just sharing out of the riches of our lives to all who will listen. Words flow naturally and freely from the well within. For, after all, most anxiety is repressed excitement.

The “Map is not the Territory”; The “Menu” is not the “Meal”.

What does all this have to say about whether I block or whether I speak freely and fluently?  It has everything to do with it. The foundation of NLP is based on General Semantics as developed by Alfred Korzybski in his classic 1933 and still in print book Science and Sanity.  As a scientist, Korzybski brought the mind of a scientist to the world of thoughts and communication.  One of his great insights is summed up in the phrase, “The Map is Not the Territory”.  What does he mean by that?  Korzybski is just saying that our perception; our mental mapping, is not, nor can it be the “Territory” or the world that we represent with the movies and language of the mind.

Think about it. All the pictures, sounds and feelings in our head are not what they represent in the world or in the territory.  They are just symbols of what we have experienced from the world/ territory. Our words whereby we create meaning are just symbols of our experience of the territory. All of our mapping is metaphorical.  Indeed, our perceptions are all abstractions as Korzybski called them. Is there a scientific instrument that can go into the brain and find a picture? A sound?  A word?  No, of course not.  A great mystery of Neuro-Science and Neurology is just how does the brain create these abstractions from the energy manifestations of our neural networks. We don’t know but we do know that we operate off of them as if they are real. Indeed, because they are not real in that sense, they only have the reality we give them.

For instance, when you go to a job interview and fear overwhelms you that you may block, how old do you feel?  For most PWS, they will feel very young. And, there is a reason for that. You cease being an adult because the event triggered you back to when you were a child and you became fearful of speaking to an authority figure. Maybe your father was very harsh and kept on you to “Spit it out, son. Spit it out!” Or, maybe a school teacher would stand you up before the class to read and you would block. The class laughed at you and the teacher made fun of you. On and on I could go with examples that I have discovered from PWS.

What is happening?  You have confused the “map” with the “territory”. You have ceased operating off the map of an adult who has adult resources and you have regressed back to a child and you are operating off of the map you created as a child in those difficult situations. Now, this happens fast – in about 1/3000^th of a second. That is one of the reasons that it is so hard to control. But, that is what happens in the vast majority of blocking situations. You cease operating off a map of a resourceful adult and you operate off of a map of a child full of fear, anxiety and embarrassment. This in turns triggers your blocking strategy and you block.

But, when you are by yourself or maybe when you are with trusted friends, you place the meaning on those situations that do not trigger you back to a childhood map but you, instead, operate off your map as a mature resourceful adult.

Indeed, in my opinion, mental health has a whole lot to do with our creating a mental map that accurately as symbolically possible maps out the world or the territory that we are living in right “now”; not, when we were a child. There is no wonder that we experience so much fear and anxiety when we operate off of a child’s map. We are trying to perform in an adult world with the thinking of a child. That is scary.

Click her for Part II