Comments on list dialog and invitation to BTF

In response to a message from Janet Ackerman in which I was invited to join the board of directors for the Birch Tree Foundation (BTF).

Thank you very much for your kind words on my contributions. Like many
others, I am sure, I have been tempted to give up in frustration, but
I can't let misleading statements get to the stuttering community unchallenged,
and, curiously, I came to the realization that the fact that I am not a SLP
has given me an advantage in that nobody can accuse me of touting "rival"
therapies for personal gain! You and Woody have been very careful in mantaininga low key objective approach, but I am sure it must be hard at times NOT to
intervene more forcefully and become "censors". I am very glad you have been
able to trust that the PWS and SLP populations would be better served by lettingall opinions be expressed. There would be nothing worse than turning misguided
people into underground heroes.

The silver lining is, I hope, that even long, circular and unresolved
discussions are revealing how the "players" think and are educating people
on facts and methodologies. People who start off with radical positions will
rarely change their view, but I think there is a "silent majority" out there
who has been learning a few useful things.

A suggestion I have is, perhaps, to be a bit more proactive in getting issues
to the fore, so that new interesting issues get to be discussed instead of
being compelled to react to the old ones again and again. Sometimes the best
way to eradicate weeds is to plant a lot of "good stuff" around!

Now, to your offer. I am truly deeply honored that you would invite me to
work with people such as yourselves and the present members of the board!
With the caveat that, at this point, coming by travel money would be a
hardship for me, I would be thrilled to contribute to your endeavor. It
would eventually kill my "neutrality" but what the heck..

Fortunately a lot can be done nowadays with email, faxes etc. and I am
well equipped for long distance collaboration both in my office and at
home, so, let me know what you have in mind!

Control and stuttering variability

In response to the point that there is great variability in stuttering behavior

It's hard not to agree with that statement, but what does it REALLY tell
us? Not much unfortunately. Most of all it does NOT tell us that there
are different CAUSES for each individual, but only that there are
different ways of coping, and this is really not surprising. If you
catch a cold your body's immune system reacts, you sneeze, maybe have
a fever. None of these things are under conscious control so all human
bodies tent to react in similar ways.

Speech, on the other hand, is, at least in part, under conscious control
and is learned. It is not surprising then, creative as we are, we'll find
extremely individual ways to cope. If we had conscious control over the
symptoms of cold (or even if we thought we did..) and found that by
hopping on one leg or flapping one arm you could prevent some of its
symptoms, you'd find a lot of people adopting the strangest behaviors
during flu season and you'd say that colds too are as individual as people!

While this variability certainly calls for (and explains the relative
success of) individualized forms of therapy, it is important to try and find
the commonality of what is happening. Even the "argument" between John
and myself, I think, ended in what I perceive as a deep agreement in
how we both have dealt with blocks (i.e. dimistify the individual block
and look at the whole "speaking picture").

Even control vs. non-control is, in my opinion, a non-issue. This is
in part because we don't agree on what we mean by "control". Some people
think of "easy stuttering" as non-control. I think any injection of
consciousness in the mechanics of speech is "control". Again, it is
not surprising to me, given different mind sets and different learned
behaviors, that different stutterers may feel helped by fluency shaping
while others prefer easy stuttering. Still, the common goal is to produce
acceptably fluent speech WITHOUT having to think of the mechanics of it, and
many of us have learned that, in time, this can happen more and more.

I find it interesting that the closer stutterers get to fluency, the
more similar their stuttering "style" gets. Is this so "by definition"
since they are close to fluency?... I don't think so. I think that, as we
throw away much of the learned useless baggage, stuttering becomes quite
uniform. Do any SLPs agree with me on this point?

Objections to "Stuttering University"

In response to the problem of a "separatist enviroment" (problems "re-joining" the fluent world)

I share this concern, and considering that it took me years before
I could comfortably approach other stutteres, I surprised myself in
having changed my thinking. (What follows is part of previous private
posting) The university idea stems from solving the constant dilemma between approaching stuttering by focusing on it and by NOT focusing on it. One could get a degree without attending a single therapy session and yet have "worked" on
one's stuttering by approaching every subject in the context of his/her
path towards whatever degree of fluency s/he sees as a goal. All in
a supportive environment.

Women have used the "supportive environment" argument to justify women's
colleges. I don't know what it is about us stutterers... but even admitting
the need for a supportive environment seems hard to do. Perhaps because
of the 4 to 1 ratio of male to female stutteres there is a pervasive
"malist" attitude that we should be "tough enough" to take on whatever
comes our way. Dare I say that we need larger dosage of good nourishing
"female" thinking?

Response to the "relapse problem" following successful intensive therapy

The idea is precisely to prevent this problem. An "intensive therapy
environment" could not be sustained for 4 or more years. It would have to
become REAL life along the way... good grades, bad grades, your girlfriend
dumps you.. your roommate snores. A recent posting on how John H. and
I agree on this issue should clarify why I think this would work differently,
but I could be wrong, of course.

The more I think about it, though, the more I am becoming convinced that four
or more years where we can FORGET and NOT FORGET about stuttering and
LIVE, with it, without it, though it ... whatever .. could change the
lives of many people.

Response to the need for a better name... ("it's the people who stutter, not the university!")

Before it becomes real, if ever, I am sure we'll figure out a better name,
all the more so since (imagination being so cheap anyhow) I actually envision
some non-stutterers wanting to enroll. Why? The best SLP department, great
engineering, computer science and biology (for control, artificial
intelligence, brain modeling etc.), great liberal arts for personal
growth, international atmosphere, and yes, lots of PWSs... the best
bunch of folks that ever walked the earth (please allow me one of the
few elements of pride allowed to stutterers... you have to become a pretty
special person to survive stuttering with some degree of sanity.. and
most of us do! :-)).

To John Harrison: some points of agreement

Just when I thought that we had parted company and were merrily walking
in different directions I find you again! I agree so much with what you
said in your posting that I had a very hard time selecting just a sentence or
two for reference.

First of all, even though we don't agree on the "nature" of blocks, we
essentially did the same thing: we DIMISTIFIED THEM. You did so by
analyzing what you thought might be underlying psychological causes. I
did so by simply ignoring them, acting as if they hadn't happened and
moving on. Let me add an analogy to all your great ones.

Let's face it, we are lousy windsurfers in the "sea of speech". Fluent
folks seem to be able to navigate no matter how rough the sea gets. As
soon as a few waves show up down we go..

Now, if we really concentrate (focus on "targets" etc.) we can survive
a good wave, but, sure enough, here comes another one... and another
one. It's a lousy way to surf... no fun at all.. and pretty soon down
we go anyhow. Fortunately it turns out that in the "sea of speech"
we can do one very interesting thing: with some effort we can actually
LOWER the waves ("tension"?)! Great! So here comes a wave.. Quick.. remember
your techniques... concentrate.. LOWER the wave! Smack... you hit the
wave... sorry it's too late to do anything about it now... and down you
go. Why can't we lower every damn wave when it comes? Because if we
wait until each particular wave comes it's always TOO LATE.

What's the solution? Forget about each particular wave, look at the
whole sea, look at the sun, enjoy the wind pushing you through the
water. You CAN make the whole seascape calmer, and if you still fall once
in a while it's OK.

I found that when I switched from monitoring each single wave (word) to
monitoring the whole sea the going got a lot easier. Each block was
not an enemy to be conquered so I could go on to the next one (talk
about fatigue!), rather it was a signal, a reminder that a battle had
ensued that I wanted no part of. So I'd back off, wait for the seas/battle
to calm down, and I'd get going again. Eventually I found that I needed
fewer and fewer blocks/signals to remind me to calm the sea, and I found
that the blocks became less severe and often barely perceptible. I also
found that even the tiniest blocks, unnoticed by anyone but me, were still
very good "signals", so I didn't have to wait until major blocks to
remember to lower the waves... I could just keep them down constantly and
ENJOY my speech-surfing excursion.

What are the consequences of this view for therapy? You have just gone
through a two week workshop and you are doing pretty well. Now if you
could just keep doing the same "things" in the real world... right?

WRONG!!!!

You are not at the end of your therapy, YOU ARE AT THE BEGINNING! You have
learned to survive that big wave when it hits you, and that's a great
skill to have, but that's not speech. You have speech, enjoyable speech
(as it should be by definition) when you have learned to create the
conditions that make the sea calmer and calmer and when, in fact, the
techniques you have learned become easier.. and ultimately unnecessary.
It's no wonder to me that so often people simply tire out and "revert" to
the old ways. Techniques are not "solutions" to be harked back to. They
are temporary band-aids to get you on your way. My believe is that future
therapy will, in fact, include the much harder process of "removal" of these
band-aids... I have tried to illustrate here how I have tried to do just
that for myself.

John: I forgot I was "talking" to you... and got on my soap-box. From what
I have read in your postings, it seems to me that you removed your "band-aids"
in much the same way, and I think this is important feedback to both SLPs and
fellow stutterers.

Clarification on my stuttering competence

I have been sent private e-mail asking my opinion on various issues and
how they might differ from John Harrison's. With John, I have been very active
on the list lately, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to do so, but
I want to make sure there is no misunderstanding on my level of "authority"
just because my opinions appear frequently...

I am NOT a SLP. I am a scientist, trained in Physics (MA), Biophysics (Ph.D)
and Computer Science. I have been working at NASA for the past 15 years and
I am now doing research in the area of Neuroengineering. I am also a stutterer,
although on a good day you might never guess it. I have had only brief
encounters with therapy and I consider myself mostly "self-taught" in how I
deal with my stutter.

Now to John, me and dealing with blocks. John and I are friends and see
each other occasionally at NSP functions. I have NEVER heard him block or
repeat in any way that would make me think that he had ever stuttered, so
he MUST have done something right. I think my stutter is more easily
revealed but I am also quite satisfied with my own progress. The reason
I am posting this is that many might find it interesting to note that both of us seem to have overcome blocks by coming from different directions. This
certainly accounts, at least in part, for our "philosophical" differences in
this area.

John (I am sure he'll jump in if I misrepresent him) seems to have "studied"
each block as it happened, wondered what was about that particular word
that might have made him want to avoid it, etc. This increased level of
awareness slowly seemed to "melt away" the blocks (correct John?).

I, on the contrary, approached blocking by completely ignoring and quickly
forgetting any word I might block on. I felt (and still do) that blocking,
in its basic essence, was an "accident" that could happen on any word, for
no particular reason, and that, in fact, if I lingered on the word,
wondered why etc., I might add an element of fear to that word, which would
make it more likely that I would block on it again (yes, I recognized a
"psychological" component). I directed my awareness instead to my speech
apparatus as a whole, to decrease any tension in my body and promote
a general sense of well being and joy of speaking no matter what. What I
mean is that I would NOT think something like "oh my God, I've got to
speak... I'd better RELAAAAAX", rather, I would try to make my body
awareness INDEPENDENT of any speaking situation, something I could
cultivate through dance training (I took Ballet, Modern and Jazz training
for 7 years) and classical singing (I know we don't stutter when we sing,
but that wasn't the point). All of these disciplines deal with eliminating
even very subtle tension from your body to free it for the production
of beautiful movement or sound, and to make the whole process as automatic
and subconscious as possible so your mind and body are free to create "art".

I think I slowly learned to tap into that same state "on demand" and use it
to support my speech (and, when needed, the various techniques and "tricks" you learn in therapy). I am not suggesting that everyone should spend ten
years learning dance and classical singing (although it WAS GREAT FUN, and I
met my wife, a beautiful dancer, along the way), but simply that this path is
SLOW, so we might as well try to make it fun, in whatever way suits us best.
Having seen how difficult it is to achieve the subtle control it takes to
become a good dancer or a good singer I have a hard time even conceiving
how anyone can expect that even a few weeks of therapy will "cure" stuttering.
Yes, you can learn tools and tricks that can come quite handy, and can
get you started on your way. But from that point to feeling a true joy
in speaking is a long way... but I really don't mean to sound discouraging,
it can be a FUN way too.

One last thing (apologies for the length of this). I should just mention
that this is precisely the context in which I proposed a "Stuttering
University": a place where stuttering can be "forgotten" and worked on
at the same time... all while having fun... learning... and living.

On "blocking"

Continuing a dialog with John Harrison in response that his feeling that blocking is a "strategic response"

Yes, we part company. It feels to me like a bunch of sand has been thrown,
so to speak, onto my speech apparatus. And that causes me to stumble, not
everywhere "at random" but at linguistically significant points, such as
word beginnings. I think not because these words are somehow "loaded" but
simply because they are there. It's as if speaking is like crossing a stream
by hopping on stones. If your legs get weak you end up slipping and stumbling
on some of them.

John feels that there is always an "approach avoidance" conflict present in blocks. He asks "how do I know it's not present"?

That's right, I don't know, and neither do you. I think it's great that,
having both had the dubious "advantage" of feeling stuttering from the
inside, we have concocted different "models". This should give some
reassurance to our friends SLPs who don't stutter!

We agree on so many things that I had lost sight of (or never understood) what
we did not agree on. It really would be boring and perhaps hopeless if we
all marched in lock step. The important thing is we have identified two
possible "models" (if mine can be thus dignified). You attach important
psychological udertones to blocking, I, while not denying that
these could play a role, see "generic" tension as a more direct cause.
Your mental image is "approach avoidance" conscious or unconscious, mine
is "sand in the machinery". I think these different views can have therapeutic
consequences. The next step is to see whether there is any
evidence out there to support one or the other. Do any SLPs and or researchers
on the list have an opinion and/or can cite evidence to shed some light?
(As usual... sorry if all this is old hat..)

Response to a "defender" of Dr. Schwartz's therapy methods

I am really happy that you and many others
have achieved the best results you could have hoped for. This is a credit
to both Dr. Schwartz and to your determination. I can (believe me) feel
the pain you must have gone through in so many false starts and false
hopes, and I understand your desire to share your success with everyone.

Unfortunately a scientific forum like this one must seem quite stubborn
and cold-hearted at time. The very simple fact is that Dr. Schwartz's therapy
has been an equally painful false start for SOME stutterers. I know,
if they had REALLY done it... but this is precisely one of the very
legitimate issues we have been trying to pursue. There is NO SLP I know
who has not had what they would regard as "failures".

So where does that leave us? Many people have come on the list stating
that they had received benefit from Dr. Schwartz's therapy. Nobody had
any negative reactions to their saying so. I personally reacted to your
postings simply because you came across, at least to me, as saying "here
is someone who has THE answer and nobody is paying attention for some
unspecified warped reasons". Well, even aside from my own differences
in thinking, most postings I have seen on this list have found fault
with some aspect of Dr. Schwartz's model, or of his definition of "success".
This is a simple fact I felt obliged to state. Why? Simply because I
think stutterers should be able to make informed decisions.

It is also a fact that many, including me, have paid attention, asked
questions, agreed or not agreed with answers, and conducted what I feel
has been a fair, albeit often inconclusive, debate (I am still ready
to send you what I have collected, if you are interested).

Can I ask you to please help us continue in this fashion? Dr. Schwartz
has been perfectly capable to conduct the debate about his model and
his therapy. Your testimony has been noted. Could you tell us what
hadn't worked in past therapies? What your specific objections are to
other models? I am sure you could come up with more.

There is no conspiracy here. We are all in the same boat. Many of us
have been through a great deal of pain, and all of us are trying to
spare it from others both close to us and far. Let's help each other
do so.