Experiences With Therapy
As a speech language pathology student, I am wondering if any of you have experienced a very negative or positive interaction with a therapist? What made the experience so negative or positive? What did the therapist do? What impact did this interaction have on you?
I didn’t have any speech therapy until 1968. I was 14 years old and my school in Aberdeenshire, Scotland organised a weekly hour with a visiting speech therapist (SLP) called Sheila. She was a nice enough woman who sat in a wheel chair, was exceedingly large and tried to teach me fluency. Total waste of time and what’s more I knew then that it was doing me no good and Sheila knew nothing about how I felt or why I stammered / stuttered. It was a pretty depressing hour in my school week.
Many years later I paid to see a speech therapist called Madeline. I liked her, perhaps because she was an attractive forty something and I was in my mid to late twenties. Madeline had a better understanding about the mechanics of dysfluent speech and knew the importance of self esteem and while my fluency may have improved it was marginal at best. However, my self confidence improved markedly.
In my mid thirties I went to London on the City Lit course and their therapists understood me. It was a two week intensive course with a follow up week a month later and it’s fair to say it changed my life and perception of stammering and what it was, how it had affected me etc. Carolyn and Tom were inspirational and whilst my fluency improved it was the understanding of myself, being able to live with a stammer and the importance in believing in myself that changed my life.
In other words, and like nearly every other discipline, you get good and bad SLPs and if you’re really lucky the good ones can change your life…
My worst experiences with SLP I won’t even mention here. But what made me stop different therapies was when there was only focus on fluency, breathing, and even hearing it was my fault. But the opposite was also true, and the right SLPs and other persons who saw I needed other things than total fluency, and that stuttering is so much more than speech alone, lifted me up and make me stronger.
Upbringing, culture, society, religion, personality, all of these things play a part. So to know where to start, you will need to find out who and what we bring to the table. It might seem like the hardest part, but once you’ll get to know your client and s/he offers you the trust to open up, you’ll find a true connection with your client and can work together (as you have the tools, but the client is the expert on his/her own stutter). So I’d like SLPs to start by listening and to think out of the box. Listening, because stuttering is so much more than what you see and hear. Stuttering is in our minds, hearts and the rest of our bodies as well.
In my keynote speech for the ISA World Congress http://stutteringiscool.com/podcast/therapy-smorgasbord/ I spoke about stuttering treatment being a smorgasbord. As PWS are such a huge variation of people, all with a different stutter, a different background, with different experiences AND with different wants and needs, there is no one therapy for all. One might want fluency, another might want confidence, the third might want public speaking skills, the fourth might simply want relaxation. A multi-disciplinary approach, with not just clinicians, but also using yoga, song, mindfulness and massage might do the trick. Just like going to the gym is not for all. Sometimes the tools aren’t right, sometimes the clinician/trainer, sometimes the time isn’t right. So by listening to the client and, together with the client, find a smorgasbord of activities to pick from, and maybe invite a friend to the therapy room to help your client with the challenges and exercises outside the therapy room might be the key. (Just as it’s more fun to do tough things together with a friend.) So, give the client a smorgasbord, explain the different “dishes” and let the client pick and choose and give it a try. It’s the combination of “flavors” that can make the perfect “dish”. 🙂 Being in this “kitchen” together, client and clinician, makes a team and can maybe create new “dishes”, instead of a teacher-student situation where one simply does what he is told, leaving the room with a sigh of relief. And what is more rewarding than for a client to feel proud and wanting to keep on expending comfort zones and new speaking levels, and for the clinician to watch and cheer the client, you’ve been coaching, reaching new levels. 🙂 The books need to be rewritten, from counting stuttered syllables, risking to silence the client, to counting life successes, as that’s what really matters.
So keep them talking
Anita