As a person who stutters, working on your self-confidence through altering the way you talk to yourself, facing challenging speaking situations head-on and working on your self-image, can all help with dealing with the emotional problems associated with stuttering, or stammering. However, overcoming the anxiety of stuttering is something that takes real effort; sometimes months and even years’ worth. What can really assist you on your path in overcoming the anxiety of stuttering is learning to create powerful states, and practice getting into those states whenever you need them; doing so can help you during those moments when the anxiety of stuttering comes back. Below is an exercise you can use to overcome the anxiety of stuttering using your most highest and meaningful belief (I would like to give credit to Dr Bobby G. Bodenhamer as the following steps are an adaptation of his ‘Bitter Root to Jesus Pattern’).

Using Your Highest Belief to Help Overcome the Anxiety of Stuttering

In this exercise, you will learn a very powerful technique to eliminate the anxiety of stuttering when needed. I will talk you through each step using a hypothetical character whose name is Rod and he is a person who stutters. Read the steps in the exercise a few times to get familiarised with it first and then come back to the start to begin it.

Step 1 – Identify the challenging speaking situation that makes you anxious

In the first step, think of a particular speaking situation that makes you anxious. This could be a situation that has already happened where you stuttered, or it could be imagining one in the future where you might have to speak and you are worried you will stutter.

In this step, Rod’s difficult speaking situation, which makes him anxious, is going to the house of a close family friend at the weekend where he knows there will also be other guests there. He usually stutters in such a situation.

Think of your own challenging speaking situation and write it down.

Step 2 – Get a visual image of the speaking situation that makes you anxious on the screen of your mind and notice its qualities

Get a visual image of the difficult speaking situation on the screen of your mind and notice its qualities (e.g. its colour, size, location, brightness/darkness, distance, focus, sounds, feelings, associated/dissociated etc.)

Notice what the image of the situation looks like in your mind. Are you looking out of your own eyes? Or can you see yourself in the image? Where is the image located? Is the image in focus, or blurred? Notice any sounds in it, other people talking, music, etc. and notice how you feel in it. Notice any anxious feelings, or any fear, or frustration or any other unhelpful emotions you are experiencing. You will most likely begin to feel anxiety in your body. Just remind yourself that you are not in the situation for real. You are only thinking about it.

For Rod’s example, he gets a visual image of himself at the family friend’s house. The image is right in front of him and is bright and in focus. He is looking out of his own eyes and is feeling very anxious in his body. Rod is sitting on a chair at the dinner table and he can see the host sitting near him at the table. His wife is pouring drinks in the kitchen and their two adult kids are standing up. He can see his own family sitting further away in the living room. There is also another family there as well. A husband and his wife are sitting at the same table as Rod. They have two young children who are playing in the middle of the living room. Another couple, a husband and wife are sitting in the living room. Rod is feeling very nervous and is worried someone at the table he is sitting at will start a conversation with him and that he will stutter.

For your own difficult speaking situation get a visual image of it on the screen of your mind and notice its qualities

Step 3 – Think of your highest belief

In this step, think of your highest and most powerful belief. This is something that you really believe in, very strongly. For example, your highest belief could be your belief in God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, universal love, or universal connectivity.

For this step, Rod thinks of his highest belief. His is his belief in the universe.

Step 4 – Get a visual image of your most powerful belief on the screen of your mind and notice its qualities

In this step, get a visual image on the screen of your mind of your highest belief (in God, Jesus, Allah, universal love etc.). Once you have an image of your highest belief, notice its qualities (e.g. colour, size, location, brightness/darkness, focus, distance, sounds, feelings, dissociated/associated etc.).

For Rod’s example, he gets a visual image on the screen of his mind of his highest belief, which is his belief in the universe. He can see a huge image of the universe high above on the right of the screen of his mind. He is looking at the image as opposed to looking out of it. The image is made up of dark space that is interspersed with huge, shining lights representing planets, stars, and galaxies, and the rays from these lights are pouring out and are bright yellow. Rod can feel the enormous power from these lights all throughout his body.

Get a visual image of your highest belief and notice what it looks like. Is it big or small? Is it bright or dark? Where is the image located? Usually, our highest belief is located up high. It may help for you to hold your head level and without moving your head, keeping your chin, level, role your eyes back into your head and see your highest belief. Are there any sounds in the image of your highest belief? If so, what are the qualities of the sounds? As you do this, notice what this image of your highest belief means to you and how it makes you feel.

Step 5 – Get both images on the screen of your mind

In step 5, you will prepare to merge both images together.

For Rod’s example, he does this by entertaining two images on the screen of his mind. One is of him worried that he will stutter at the social gathering at his family friend’s house. He sees this image right in front of him on the screen of his mind. He then sees the image of his highest belief, which is the universe, high above on the right of the screen of his mind. Do something similar with your two images. Get an image of the difficult speaking situation on the screen of your mind. Next, get an image of your highest belief.

Step 6 – Give the image of the challenging speaking situation to the image of your highest belief

Next, keeping your head and chin level, using your eyes only, with your eyes, move the image of you struggling in the speaking situation to the location of the image of your highest belief and give it to this image. As you move the image of you struggling in the speaking situation towards the image of your highest belief, allow the image of you having difficulties to merge with the image of your highest belief.

Using Rod’s example, keeping his head and chin level, with his eyes only, he moves the image of him worrying about stuttering at the social gathering hosted by the family friend up towards the image of the universe and the challenging speaking situation image merges with the image of the universe.

Do something similar with your two images.

Step 7 – Notice how you feel now

In the final step in this exercise, notice how you now feel about the negative image about your speaking situation after you have given it to the image of your highest belief.

Typically what happens when you do this is you no longer feel anxious about the image of the difficult speaking situation. This is because you have given it to the image of your highest belief. The meanings you have attached to your highest belief are very strong and powerful and usually overbear the negative feelings associated with the image about the difficult speaking situation.

When Rod does this with his example, after he moves the image of the social gathering situation where he is worried he might stutter up to the image of the universe and merges the two, the negative feelings associated with the difficult image of him at the social gathering completely disappear and he feels like he can approach this situation with confidence.

Notice any changes in how you feel and how your perception towards the challenging speaking situation has changed. Make some notes of any changes you experience.

About the Author
Hiten Vyas is a life coach, author and speaker. In his coaching practice, he specializes in helping people who stutter overcome speaking related anxieties and increase their self-confidence.

 

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) offers various tools to model unhelpful states such as anxiety associated with stuttering, or stammering. To counter negative emotions, NLP also offers techniques to develop new and empowering states as replacements to those that hold a person who stutters back in life.

Underlying the NLP model for creating change is a number of ‘statements’, beliefs or assumptions that are taken as granted. As a person who stutters, or stammers, you can apply these to yourself no matter what your current circumstances maybe. In the NLP world, these are known as the ‘NLP Presuppositions’.

They are very powerful and can prove to be great resources. Below I share five NLP presuppositions, describe what each one means and explain how each one can help you to deal with stuttering.

1. There is no failure, only feedback

This is my favourite presupposition and arguably the most well-known. It is an attitude, which supports any activity you do in your journey to overcoming stuttering. By adopting it and living it, you give yourself permission to try out things, which push you out of your comfort zone such as public speaking or speaking to random strangers, experiment while doing such activities and make mistakes.

Because when you make a mistake, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It’s just feedback you can use to change and adapt what you’re doing, in order to continue increasing your self-confidence and breaking down fears associated with stuttering.

2. Our map is not the territory; it is but a map, a symbolic representation of the territory.

This NLP presupposition helps you to challenge your perspectives about your stuttering. As an example, let’s say you gave a sales presentation at work in front of a client and two of his colleagues. You stuttered quite a bit during it. After you left the meeting, you thought you did really badly and felt you had humiliated yourself because you stuttered. However, your client and his colleagues when reflecting on your presentation felt you had really got across the message about how your company’s services could help them.

What this illustrates is your ‘maps’ about yourself and stuttering are never complete. You can’t recollect completely accurately what happened during situations where you might have stuttered. Your ‘maps’ may contain information about stuttering incidents that is distorted or deleted even. Therefore, this gives rise to the opportunity to challenge those ‘maps’, which are not helping you to navigate the world happily and alter them into better ones.

3. We respond according to our map of the territory, not the territory

What this NLP presupposition can help you understand is what you believe to be reality about yourself and your stuttering only exists in your mind. You respond to this ‘reality’. This reality is created by your senses (your eyes, ears, feelings, taste and smell) and the way to talk to yourself (self-talk). And you have these experiences through filters of thoughts and beliefs you already have about yourself as a person who stutters, or stammers.

Let’s use the previous example I used when describing the ‘our map is not the territory’ NLP presupposition, which is giving a presentation to a client and two of his colleagues at work. The presentation represents the ‘territory’. You deliver the presentation and create a ‘map’ about it. Your ‘map’ is that you did terribly because you stuttered. Your client and his colleagues listen to your presentation. However, the ‘map’ your client and his colleagues create about the presentation is that you explained the benefits of your company’s services really well.

This realisation is a very important one. By responding according to your own ‘maps’ of the ‘territory’, you’re responsible for them because you created them. You needn’t believe or feel any other person or anything external to you is the cause of your problems associated with stuttering. After all, remember, you’re not responding to ‘what is out there’. You’re responding to your ‘maps’ of what is out there and these can be changed, because you’re the one who made them in the first place.

4. The meaning of communication is the response I get

So you stutter when talking with other people. However, the way you communicate is far more than the way you speak. Rather than focusing on your speech, try focusing on getting across the message you want to convey to the person you’re speaking with, and consider whether you’re getting the response you want.

For example, if you’re trying to explain directions to a stranger on the street and you stutter, and find the person you’re speaking with doesn’t understand you, or you’re not getting the response you want, rather than blaming the other person for judging you because of the way you’re speaking (which the person probably isn’t doing anyway!), you can just change the way you are communicating, using a whole host of tools at your disposal. This could involve using a different tone of voice, or certain words or a particular facial expression.

5. People are not broken; they work perfectly well

This is an extremely helpful NLP presupposition.

What it means is you may be experiencing problems related to stuttering. Although it may seem like life isn’t a party, nothing is wrong about you. All you’re doing is running ‘unhelpful maps’ in your mind really competently.

For instance, if you’re a person who stutters and just the thought of picking up a ringing phone makes you get anxious and fearful, then what this means is, you’ve just learnt to create anxiety in this particular context in an expert way!

And if you’ve learnt to create anxiety in the context of answering the phone really well, you can learn to create another more resourceful response, such as a state of confidence to help you pick up the phone when it rings.

How you can use these NLP presuppositions to help you deal with stuttering?

In this article, I’ve explained five key NLP presuppositions and shared some ideas of how you can apply them to your stuttering. In order to help you embed them within you, contemplate on them and imagine ways of how you can apply them to various situations where stuttering is causing you problems. Say them out loud to yourself 10 times a day. Use them as daily affirmations, to help engrave them into you, so they become powerful beliefs by which you live your life.

About the Author

Hiten Vyas is a life coach, author and speaker. In his coaching practice, he specializes in helping people who stutter overcome speaking related anxieties and increase their self-confidence.

If you’re a person who stutters, or stammers then you may have noticed one thing – a link between anxiety and stuttering, i.e. before you actually stutter, you feel anxious about the prospect of speaking. This article contains an adaptation of the famous Swish Pattern from the field of NLP, which you can use to create a new self-image to help you deal with anxiety and stuttering. Before I explain the technique, I’m going to explain the link between anxiety and stuttering using an example.

An Example of the Link between Anxiety and Stuttering

Michelle is a person who stutters. One particular situation where she usually stutters is when she says her friend Dina’s name. Michelle has been analysing how she feels just before attempting to say Dina’s name. She has been monitoring her thoughts—the images and movies going on in the screen of her mind. When she thinks about saying Dina’s name, she realises she is remembering previous times she stuttered when saying her friend’s name. She is creating horror films on the screen of her mind and picturing herself really struggling to say Dina’s name. This makes Michelle feel extremely anxious and sends terror down her spine.

The Stimulus-Response Model to help explain Anxiety and Stuttering

Anxiety and stuttering can be explained using the stimulus-response model. For instance, let’s say a challenging speaking situation for you is talking to your boss because you usually stutter when you do so. You dread this type of situation. Just thinking about it sends shivers down your back. In this case, you have created an unhelpful response (which is experiencing dread, worry etc.) to the stimulus, which is a thought you have in your mind about speaking to your boss. This thought triggers anxiety, which you feel in your body. Usually this results in you avoiding speaking to your boss whenever you can.

How to Change Your Self-Image – An Adaptation of the Swish Pattern

In the following exercise, you will create a powerful and empowering self-image so that when you think of a difficult speaking situation, you will send your brain to your new self-image so that you feel confident and motivated to go into the speaking situation, instead of avoiding it.

First, read each step in the exercise a few times and follow the example of a hypothetical person (Garry) to give you an idea of what to do. After this, come back to the beginning to do the exercise yourself.

Step 1 – Identify the Challenging Speaking Situation to be Changed

Think of a speaking situation which causes you to feel anxious. Try and think of a speaking situation which will be happening soon, either in few days or a few weeks’ time. The negative emotion(s) you experience can be referred to as a state.

I will talk you through this with an example. Garry is a person who stutters and he has been invited to a wedding in a week’s time. Garry finds it difficult to go to weddings because he worries he will stutter when speaking to other guests.

Think of your own difficult, upcoming speaking situation and write it down.

Step 2 – Identify the Image of this Speaking Situation Experience

In this step, you get a full image of your difficult speaking situation on the screen of your mind. This is called the ‘cue picture’, which triggers the feelings of anxiety inside you. Whatever your difficult speaking situation you want to change is, imagine yourself there. You can either imagine a previous experience where you were in a similar speaking situation, or imagine one which will happen in the future. Identify what sounds and feelings are in the picture. Identify the brightness, distance and colour.

Using Garry’s wedding example, in this step he gets an image in his mind of a wedding. It is a wedding he went to last year. Inside it, he is looking out of his own eyes and he can see other guests sitting on chairs. The picture is in colour. He also sees men standing around who he knows. Some of them are extended family members. Others are family friends. The overall picture is clear and the other people in it are close to him. He is worried about chatting with others around him because he is afraid he might stutter. This image creates anxiety in his body.

Do something similar for you own difficult speaking situation. Once you have got such an image on the screen of your mind, notice the negative feelings it creates in you. After you have done this, mentally put this image to one side and move onto the next step.

Step 3 – Develop a Desired Self-Image Picture

What would your desired self-image look, sound and feel like? This would be a self-image where you spoke confidently and without fear. Create your new picture on the screen of your mind and give it visual characteristics and add any sounds and feelings to it. Create a picture of this you that would no longer become anxious about stuttering. Make this image as compelling as possible and keep adjusting it, by changing its colour and any sounds and feelings in it, until it is very attractive.

Consider the following questions to help you create such an image. If you no longer had this type of response to this particular speaking situation, how would you see yourself as being different? What would be the value of changing this way of being? What would it mean about you?

For instance, for this step, Garry imagines the new him who would have no problem going to weddings and speaking to other guests. He can see himself standing tall and proud, smiling a lot and he feels confident at a wedding. He is dressed smartly. At the wedding, Garry is confidently chatting with his family members and family friends. He can see himself having fun and he is feeling really good about himself.

Now, you do something similar and create a picture of the powerful and confident you. Keep making changes to the characteristics of the picture until it really compels you and draws you in. Stay on this step as long as you need to before moving onto the next one.

Step 4 – Link the Two Pictures

Begin with the ‘cue picture’ of the speaking situation that triggers the anxiety in you and make it big and bright.

Into the lower left corner of that picture put a small, dark image of the second picture – the desired you for whom this speaking situation is no problem.

At this point you are entertaining two images in your mind. You are seeing the world from your own eyes in the ‘cue picture’ and seeing the empowered you in the tiny dot in the lower left corner. You are looking out of your own eyes in the first picture and dissociated (you can see yourself) in the second.

Using Garry’s example, he is now seeing two images in his mind. He is looking out of his own eyes into to the image of him at the wedding and feeling anxious about all the extended family and family friends around him. He can also see a little dot in the lower left corner of the confident him who is enjoying being at a wedding.

Do something similar for your two images.

Step 5 – Switch the Pictures

In this step, you will quickly allow the ‘cue picture’ to fade out far back into the distance and at the same time you will let the dot that contains the desired image to very quickly get bigger and brighter and closer. As the ‘cue picture’ gets smaller, darker and distant, let the new picture of you switch in and completely cover the screen of your mind. You do this very quickly in less than a second.

So, for Garry’s example, he quickly allows the image of him being very anxious at a wedding move backwards into the distance and fade away. At the same time, he allows the desired image of the confident him at a wedding to get bigger and quickly move closer to him so that it covers the screen of his mind. All of this takes a maximum of a second.

Do the same with your two images.

Step 6 – Switch 5 Times

After the first switch, close your eyes and blank out the screen of your mind. Alternatively, open your eyes and look around.

In Garry’s example, after he has done the first switch, he opens his eyes and looks around at the room he is in.

You too, close your eyes and blank out the screen of your mind then open your eyes and look around at your surroundings.

Now do it again. Go back to the linked pictures and repeat the process 5 times. After each switch, clear your mental screen either by closing your eyes or opening them and looking around you.

Step 7 – Test

Now test to see if this has worked. Allow yourself to think about the triggering ‘cue picture’ that sets off the anxiety about the prospect of stuttering. Notice what happens. As you think about the ‘cue picture’ does your mind now immediately go to the new picture of the confident you? If so, it has worked.

In Garry’s example, after he has switched his two images 5 times, he now allows himself to think of the first image of him feeling anxious at the wedding. As he does this, his mind now automatically switches to the image of the confident him who is enjoying himself speaking with other people at a wedding.

Do the test yourself now, and see if your mind automatically goes to the image of the new you who is very confident, instead of the image of you struggling in a speaking situation.

If you mind doesn’t go straight to the new you image go back to step 6 and switch both images 5 more times and then test again.

If you’re serious about overcoming the fear and anxiety of stuttering or stammering, you probably have read or are reading lots of self-help books. One idea, which is fundamental throughout many of self-help books you might read, is the area of self-talk. You might never has realised you talk to yourself. You always did. However, you weren’t really conscious of it, or what you were saying to yourself. It happened very quickly. When you sit down to imagine situations where you might stutter or stammer you begin to notice that, indeed, you do talk yourself. And what you’re saying could be very negative. Below are some things you might say to yourself:

I can’t go to that party because I might have to speak and people will see me stammer.

I can’t go to that meeting at work because people might ask me questions and I will stammer.

I can’t go for dinner with all those people there because I won’t talk and they will think I’m weird.

My uncle will be at the party. I always stammer around him.

Only after catching yourself saying such things, do you realise how much they contribute to your feeling anxious and worried. They add fuel to your avoidance of situations where you might stutter or stammer. In order to begin to address this, what you can do is change the way you talk to yourself. You can begin to say positive statements about yourself. This is known in the personal development field as positive affirmations. Positive affirmations are positive statements that you tell yourself, which describe the type of person you want to be. You could write down statements like the following:

I am confident.

I can speak articulately.

I am good enough.

You can write down a list of ten such positive statements and repeat them to yourself every day, each one, 20 times. You can use a powerful tonality, and say the words with strong conviction.

Exercise – Unhelpful Self-talk and Positive Statements

In this exercise, you will notice the type of unhelpful self-talk you currently say to yourself. You will then replace this with other statements that are positive and empowering. Use the following steps and have a pen and piece of paper handy to make notes. This exercise will work best if you actually have an upcoming speaking situation in the future, which normally makes you anxious because of your stuttering, or stammering. If you don’t have one then this is fine. Still proceed with the steps in this exercise:

1. Think about an upcoming speaking situation, which you would normally become anxious about because of your stuttering, or stammering. Think of one which will be coming up soon, if possible. As you do, notice any unhelpful words or phrases you say to yourself and then write them down. For example, let’s say you are going to a party for a colleague who is leaving your company. As examples, the sentences you might tell yourself are: I can’t handle leaving parties because I have to talk to colleagues or I always stammer when talking to colleagues when we’re having dinner. Think of similar types of statements you say to yourself and write them down. Write down as many statements, words and phrases about yourself, your stammering and this particular speaking situation as you can.

2. Think of 5 positive statements about this particular speaking situation instead, and write them down. For instance, if the speaking situation you found difficult was going to work leaving parties for a colleague at work, positive statements you might write are:

I really enjoy going to leaving parties.

I’m always very social at leaving parties.

I feel confident at leaving parties.

I’m a great conversationalist at leaving parties.

I love being the centre of attention at leaving parties.

3. Write down your own similar statements, ensuring they are positive and in the present tense. It doesn’t matter if you don’t fully believe your statements, yet. The purpose of this exercise is to get into the habit of changing the way you talk to yourself.

4. Now, if you already did believe these statements, how you would you repeat the statements to yourself? Say, out loud, each of your statements 20 times while standing up, with a confident posture, using a powerful tonality and a loud and clear voice. Do this every day either in the morning or at night. As you say these statements, notice how you feel. If you feel confident and empowered, just recognise how you have the power to change how you feel by changing the words you say to yourself.

After you have completed this exercise, move onto the next one.

Exercise – Using Positive Statements before Going into Speaking Situations

In this exercise, you will now use the motivation you have created from the exercise above, to go into a speaking situation you normally find difficult. The purpose of this exercise is to allow your mind to begin to process your new way of talking to yourself and gain experience of going into a speaking situation, with such language embedded in your mind-body. On the day of the particular speaking situation, repeat the statements from the first exercise before you go out. Allow yourself to feel motivated and experience any other helpful emotions associated with saying your positive statements.

As you are starting out on working on your anxiety caused by stuttering, or stammering, and begin to use positive statements, you may find your motivation increases. However, the chances are you might still find it difficult to go into a speaking situation you normally find challenging. If this is the case, you need to put yourself into the situation. There really is no other way about it. Otherwise, what will happen is you will make yourself feel good through saying positive statements to yourself and that will be it. Remember not to be hard on yourself if you still find it challenging to go to a particular speaking situation. You are developing new attitudes and behaviours and these will take some time to settle inside you.

While at the speaking situation, use your positive statements as a way to change your behaviour. For instance, make an effort to be the first person to start a conversation with someone next to you. If you stammer when you do so, just engage with the person for a few minutes. Or, if a group of people are having a conversation at the bar, share a story with everyone by speaking out loud and letting the others listen to you. Again if you stammer, say what you want to say and take as much time as you need.

At the very least go to the speaking situation and just observe how you feel and listen to others. Just notice how your feelings of being uncomfortable emerge, last for some time and then pass. Once you come back home, don’t make judgements about whether you did well in the situation or not. You made a big achievement, which was confronting your fears and going anyway.

Congratulations!

If you’re a person who stutters or stammers, a key thing to recognise is that events that happen to you, which involve stuttering, either in the outside world, or thoughts you have in your mind do not cause you to have unhelpful emotions such as anxiety. It is your interpretations and meanings you have given about the events and your thoughts about stuttering, which impact how you feel. However, your interpretations can often contain errors, which mean that the meanings you attach to your experiences where you may have stuttered previously, or might stutter in the future are not always correct. This is useful to know as it provides the basis to overcome negative thoughts about stuttering or stammering.

Errors in Thoughts about Stuttering

When you get involved in incidents where you stutter and have thoughts in response to those incidents, and when you think of stuttering incidents at a later time and again feel negative emotions inside your body, the thoughts you have seem so real. After all you feel their effects in your body. However, the truth is that the thoughts you have often contain lots of distortions and errors. Usually you don’t see these errors, unless you actually take time to analyse your thoughts. Below you will learn about 5 types of errors you can have in negative thoughts about stuttering. Each error is explained with an example, along with some tips on how you can overcome these errors.

1. Making it Personal

With this type of error, an incident occurs where you stuttered and you end up taking the result of it personally rather than looking at the incident objectively, to see if other factors might be playing a part in what happened.

Example  

Jamie works at a local charity shop and a customer called Maureen who is a person who stutters often comes in to chat. Jamie has been very busy today and is feeling quite stressed. When Maureen comes into the shop, and tries to start a conversation with Jamie, she starts to stutter when she speaks. Jamie doesn’t talk much and Maureen perceives him as being impatient because of her stuttering. When Maureen leaves, she blames herself for Jamie’s behaviour and tells herself that Jamie became impatient because I was stuttering. This type of statement is an example of making thoughts about stuttering personal because Maureen has incorrectly assumed that Jamie was impatient because of her.

How to Tackle Making it Personal

In order to handle negative thoughts about stuttering where you’ve been personalising, think of alternative explanations of situations and events that have nothing to do with you, or your stuttering.

2. Rejecting the Positive

Rejecting the positive involves taking an event or situation where you stuttered, which is actually positive, but where you discount the positive aspect and make it into a negative event.

Example

Rachel has just given a speech at her public speaking group. While delivering the speech, Rachel stuttered little. During the coffee break, a fellow member Beverly comments to Rachel how she thoroughly enjoyed her speech. Rachel believes Beverly only said this because she felt sorry for her because she stuttered during her speech.

How to Tackle Rejecting the Positive

To work on this type of thinking error, you can consciously make an effort to acknowledge positive comments made about you where you may have stuttered, by putting yourself first and believing that indeed a positive compliment that someone gives you, is because of you and not because someone is taking pity on you.

3. Strong Language

Strong language means the use of words that can affect you strongly emotionally, often in unhelpful ways. The words you use can either cause you to feel bad about yourself and your stuttering, and other people, which can then impact whether you can tolerate certain situations, or are able to react in calmer ways.

Example

Phil is going out with his friends Grant and Ian. Grant tells Phil that another friend called Max is also coming. Phil doesn’t like Max because Max is very confident and when Phil is around Max, he feels insecure and stutters more. Phil says to himself I’m worried of Jack. He’s just so confident and I feel insecure around him. By using the emotive word worried, Phil creates a lot of anxiety in him, which then results in him staying at home. Instead, if Phil had said Jack is just being Jack. It’s the way he is. He’s never really judged me because of my stuttering; he would have felt far less emotive and would still have been able to go out with his friends.

How to Tackle Strong Language

When you think of scenarios where you might stutter (either in the past or in the future) and find yourself talking about them out loud or talking to yourself about them, be mindful of the words you say and ensure you refrain from using terms that will inflame the way you are feeling. Instead, use words that will help to describe stuttering events in the most neutral and objective way possible.

4. Using Feelings

Using feelings means when you use your feelings as evidence for why situations where you stutter, people who are around you when you stutter and yourself as a person who stutters are the way they are. However, it is important to remember, that just because you feel something, it doesn’t make it a fact.

Example

Suresh is a person who stutters has just come back from work. He remembers an incident at work earlier in the day when he was a business networking meeting. He noticed there was another delegate at the meeting who he heard stuttering. Suresh avoided speaking to this man as he was worried it would trigger his own stuttering. Suresh now feels very guilty for avoiding this other man and concludes that he is a very bad person.

How to Tackle Using Feelings

If you notice your thoughts about stuttering being taken over by strong feelings, a way you can deal with this is through noticing thoughts you have, which cause you to state certain facts. For instance this could be, ‘I’m feeling fearful that I might stutter, which means I’m a weak person’ or ‘I’m angry with myself because I stuttered while talking with the assistant in the shop. If you find yourself having such thoughts, which evoke strong feelings inside you, acknowledge that just because you are feeling certain emotions, it doesn’t mean they represent facts and the truth.

5. Jumping to Conclusions

With jumping to conclusions you can create a negative interpretation of an event where you stuttered without there being any facts that can act as real evidence for doing so.

Example

Jasmine is out shopping and comes across a friend called Rick who she hasn’t seen for a while. Jasmine and Rick start chatting and while Jasmine is talking, she starts to stutter. Rick has a facial expression on his face. Jasmine perceives this look to mean Rick thinking she is weird. She concludes that the friend looked at her in a strange manner because she started to stutter. In truth, Jasmine’s friend was thinking about getting home to his dog who hadn’t been well.

How to Tackle Jumping to Conclusions

If you find yourself coming to a conclusion about how someone perceives or feels about you and your stuttering, ask yourself how you really can be sure if this is the truth, or if it isn’t just something you have imagined in your mind? Consider how realistic this conclusion really is and whether there any are real hard facts to support it.

Conversely, if what you are concluding is about an event where you might stutter in the future, then remind yourself that you are creating a fantasy about what might happen. You can never know what will happen for certain until it happens, which will always be in the present moment and not in the future.

If you’re a person who stutters, or stammers (PWS) and are looking for ways to help yourself to overcome challenges around speaking, you may have come across Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a form of therapy. There are a number of great articles and resources about NLP and stuttering on the Internet. In this article, I’ve selected ten articles about NLP and stuttering you should read if you’re serious about using NLP to help you with your stutter, or stammer.

1. How Beliefs and Self-image Can Influence Stuttering

Written by Alan Badmington, this article gives an initial account of Alan’s experiences with stuttering, or stammering. He then writes about his use of tools that helped him to create control over his speech, however, Alan also explains his realisation that his inner world in the form of what he believed about himself remained fragile. Hence, he began to look at ways to change his internal chatter and concept of self-image. Alan gives an excellent overview of how limiting beliefs are created and how they can continue to torture us for years, unless we recognise them for what they are, and explains how they can be challenged. He also writes about how visualisation helped him alter his self-image and take control of what movies he created in his mind.

2. Meta-Stating Stuttering: An NLP Approach to Stuttering

Dr L. Michael Hall and Dr Bobby G. Bodenhamer in their article, look at stuttering and how states contribute to the actual behaviour of stuttering, where a state of stress kicks things off. This state of stress is then meta-stated with what people who stutter say to themselves, which negates their stuttering (e.g. “I must not stutter”) and creates anticipatory anxiety that precedes the stutter. Dr Hall and Dr Bodenhamer explain the opposite to stuttering, which they define as speaking in a relaxed manner – states associated with this relaxed speaking could be feeling calm without self-consciousness. The article also includes an interesting case study where Dr Bodenhamer talks a person who stutters through the Drop Down Through Pattern, a powerful NLP technique for stuttering; the result of which is the person who stutters speaking fluently and calmly afterwards.

3. The Neuro-Semantics approach to gaining fluency

This article is written by Nigel Wilson who shares his views on stuttering, or stammering and his experiences of applying NLP and Neuro-Semantics (a field, which is an extension of NLP and formalised by Dr L. Michael Hall and Dr Bobby G. Bodenhamer) to his own stutter. Nigel shares some interesting questions around why people who stutter can speak fluently in certain contexts (e.g. talking to oneself or to a pet), yet stutter in other situations. He continues to discuss how as people who stutter, we need to address the learned responses (in the form of unhelpful thoughts, meanings and beliefs), in order to create a sustained relief from stuttering.

4. How I Recovered from Stuttering

This piece is actually an inspirational keynote speech John C. Harrison delivered in 2002 at the Annual Meeting of the British Stammering Association. In it, John talks about his perspective of stuttering as a system and introduces his famous Stuttering Hexagon model, which consists of components including the following working in an interactive way: emotions, behaviours, perceptions, beliefs, intentions and physiological responses. He also talks about many other things such as when he started stuttering and how his stuttering impacted him as a child. He explains how factors such as being highly sensitive, being a perfectionist and wanting to please others and conforming to other’s expectations, contributed to his own stuttering.

What really stood out for me is what John comments about in relation to his own recovery, and what he identified was that stuttering is a problem with the experience of speaking with others. It isn’t a problem with the way speech is produced. Another key takeaway for me is when John talks about the importance of learning to observe, so that a person who stutters can watch oneself and ask questions about why he/she is stuttering in any particular situation and what could be the underlying beliefs, which contributes to what John calls as ‘blocking’. John also shares some wonderful tips for people who stutter, which among others include starting to read and becoming knowledgeable about being a human, journaling, and interacting with other people over the Internet and learning from their experiences.

5. The Swish Pattern

Underlying the NLP model is what is known as patterns. Each pattern is made of a set of steps, which enable people to do various things like overcome phobias, destroy excuses that hold a person back, remove negative memories and create empowering states to help deal with stuttering. The Swish Pattern is one of the most famous NLP patterns and it is my favourite. In The Swish Pattern article, Tim Mackesey, Speech Language Pathologist has written a step-by-step adaptation of the Swish Pattern, which makes use of your left and right hand. Go read the steps and start using the Swish today!

6. Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Stuttering

In this article I explain two ways in which NLP techniques for stuttering can help you – one through observing negative thoughts, and their structures and two, how these thoughts can be changed into more resourceful ones. In the article, I give an example of how you can change how you feel about a thought about stuttering and how you can replace a stuttering thought with an empowering thought or state (meta-stating as defined by Dr L. Michael Hall and Dr Bobby G. Bodenhamer).

7. If Your Mockingbird Won’t Sing

Ruth Mead in this article shares some inspirational ideas of how to look at speech and stuttering. One of Ruth’s key premises around stuttering is the working of two systems in our brains – one is the unconscious brain, which is responsible for spontaneity and effortless actions such as speaking. The other is the part of the brain, which wants to control consciously everything around it. Ruth discovered her belief that she had to control the way she spoke triggered the conscious brain to do what it isn’t intended to do; namely produce speech. She found that by trying to control speech, the spontaneous, involuntary speech was gone. Ruth also describes a wonderful metaphor about a mockingbird, which helped her to relinquish the need to control her speech and contributed to her recovering from stuttering. You can learn more about Ruth’s recovery from stuttering in her book entitled Speech is a River.

8. “How Did The Traffic Light Turn Green?”

This article written by Hazel Percy is a fantastic read. Hazel shares her life story and writes about how stuttering held her back in life; such as through limiting the jobs she went for and remaining quiet during social situations. She also talks about the positive experience she had from joining the McGuire programme, which enabled her for the first time to experience what it was like without stuttering, and allowed her to proceed to greater achievements such as public speaking. However, after the course, Hazel still had unanswered questions about using the technique she had learnt in certain situations. Her quest for solutions led her to finding John Harrison’s book How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People and learning about his Stuttering Hexagon model, which she could resonate with. This then led Hazel to finding about Neuro-Semantics, learning about the field, seeking therapy in this area, uncovering unconscious beliefs and finding out ways to change what she believed about herself and others. Subsequently, Hazel also attended another McGuire course, which gave her the encouragement to deliberately stutter in front of others; doing so gave Hazel a great sense of empowerment!

9. At a loss for no words

Although this article isn’t totally about NLP, it does explain how I got into NLP in my own journey in addressing stuttering, or stammering. I’m including the article in this list, as some of you may not know about my background and might be curious in finding out more. I have to admit, NLP, along with meditation have been central in helping me overcome the fear and anxiety of stuttering.

10. IS=EB: Stuttering Inside & Out

In this particular article, Tim Mackesey explains how internal states such as being anxious about the anticipation of stuttering can create external behaviours such as the physical behaviour of stuttering, and behaviours associated with the stuttering such as avoidance of eye contact, or blinking. Tim explains that in treatment, by only addressing external behaviours, SLPs helping an adolescent or adult who stutters will notice a plateau in the treatment given, which will then result in relapse. He emphasises the importance of ensuring SLPs help a person who stutters or stammers to tackle any major internal state issues (such as avoidance, or anxiety) as well as the physical aspects of speaking. Tim’s article makes a number of references to children who stutter, and his article offers useful guidance for parents who are seeking to understand their children’s stuttering better, and want to learn how they can help their youngsters.