Saturday, January 20, 2007

How to get out of breakdowns?

My last post was on breakdowns. How best to handle them? Here are a few solutions:

- Take it easy and just try to stutter with less effort.

- Talk less. Just realise that you have more difficulties at this moment, and talking a lot will just make it worse. So this might be the time to shut up.

- Keep business as usual.

- Read aloud to increase the proportion of fluent moment.

- Practising your fluency shaping techniques.

Any more suggestions?

3 comments:

Einar said...

I think in that situation it's best to:
- try to accept it. There is nothing wrong with being a stutterer and it's perfectly normal that speech fluency varies from day to day or from situation to situation.
- know that you can influence the situation in a constructive way.
Reading out aloud helps and also practising speech techniques. I would not recommend to "shut up" or talk less on a bad day. On the contrary the bigger and more severe symptoms are an excellent challenge to practise speech techniques on. But it's important to choose the right situations to practise. Best is to start in very easy situations and then slowly move up. On a hard day, it's probably best to accept that in some hard and difficult situations it's not possible to practise. In these difficult speaking situations I would recommend to try to limit efforts to only try to reduce avoidance behaviour and let the stuttering happen as it comes.

Most important to avoid or minimise variations in fluency is regular practise (reading out loud, in vivo training, fluency techniques...)
And if someone feels really lost and helpless over a longer period it's probably best to see or resee a stuttering therapist and/or stuttering selfhelp group as it is always easier to confront these problems with help than alone...

Anonymous said...

Hi Tom,

I have been reflecting on potential benefits of re-interpreting realities to make it easier during this breakdowns. For example, during a breakdown it may be possible to reflect on current experiences and interpret them as something positive. With practice, any situation can be seen from a positive perspective :)
I know this is not always easy and it may be distorting reality. However, considering that stuttering may be fed back with negative feelings, processing reality could be an option to foster more positive memory recalls. For example, when faced with a negative situation which was processed, it is likely that you will recall it more positively that it was.
Best regards,

Anonymous said...

Having an enthusiastic spirit can help :-)