Guiding your clients to Be Seen and Be Heard
Hello dear Professional Panel members 🙂
We all know how very difficult it is for PWS to put ourselves out there, to be seen and be heard. We know that a lot of counseling and guidance is necessary to enable the PWS to get from a position of hiding and shame to one of pride and openness. We know that many PWS resist the best efforts of the therapists to take steps to make that changes
The question is: How do you do this? What are the key factors in your therapeutic approaches that facilitate this incremental change? Also, do you advocate and teach an incremental approach?
Thank you very much
Thank you for your question Hanan. This indeed can be a long road to travel. Some people come to therapy more ready for it than others. The shame and guilt factors have a substantial impact on this process. When one believes stuttering is wrong, stuttering is their fault, fluency is the only desired end goal- there’s a way to travel. Often times, the first steps on this road are education- educating the person who stutters that stuttering means nothing about their personality, about their intelligence and about their abilities. This isn’t always a one-way path. Sometimes we have to walk down that road again and again… and again. One’s self-perceptions (which were instilled long ago) take a long time to part with, or shall I say- to gently and non-judgmentally look at from the outside and then cognitively respond to. It is a process.
Another step down that road is creating hierarchies of situations. We look closely at everyday situations in one’s life (talking to a colleague at the cafeteria) as well as the less ordinary opportunities (leading a team meeting) or the super out of the ordinary but highly desired situations (carrying out a speech in front of the entire firm) and then we check in what is the pws willing to do in each situation. Are they willing to just be present? Are they willing to say a single word? A sentence? Are they willing to add in a voluntary stutter? Would they be willing to introduce their stutter or themselves as a person who stutters? We also examine the support network one has in general as well as specifically in these situations. Would it help if a trusted friend would be next to you? Across the room? Practice with you? What step are you willing to take today and what step do you think you would be willing to take next week / next month / by the end of this year? And gradually climb up this ladder.
Widening one’s familiarity with other people who stutter- either locally or globally is also an important component in increasing the feeling that you are not alone- this is how some other people deal with it, this is how they may have found this or that helpful (or not!). Sometimes challenging each other within a group of people who stutter may be helpful to trying out new challenges.
I find that when a person comes into therapy with a solid community- family and friends who have been around for a long time and accept them for who they are, regardless of speech, it can be easier to travel down this road. It can be easier to broach the topic of stuttering and how it impacts one’s life and thus not feel alone with it, even if just be acknowledged. It can be easier to bring up stressful situations and receive support and also easier to have someone who sees you entirely for all that you are. This is not to say that if your journey takes a while it means you support network isn’t working for you- we all have our differences in how we approach challenges- it is more of a reminder for the larger community- we can make a big difference as allies and we can be that solid foundation for people who stutter from the very beginning.
Thank you for your wisdom, Mikhal