About the Author: My name is Tim Shanks and I have been active within the British Stammering Association. As the Editor of the magazine Speaking Out 1988-1993, Fundraiser 1993 – 2000, Stamma member and Your Voice contributor – my story, opinion, poems and vlog 2022. In 1972 I left college with a degree but was completely handicapped by my fear of stammering. I stumbled into a procession of dead-end jobs and failed relationships. In 1987 I discovered the Association for Stammerers (AFS) and they changed my life. I was already married and eventually developed a new career as a fundraiser. The AFS had a profound effect on me and my understanding of stammering, introducing me to the Speech Foundation of America and the works of Wendell Johnson, Charles Van Riper and Joseph Sheehan. I also discovered the City Literary Institute specialist centre for stammering and many other people who stammered. By 2023 years of psychodynamic psychotherapy had importantly helped me to accept myself and my avoidance of stammering.

One size fits all is a simplistic theory and stammering is anything but simple. 

It is not simple because all people who stammer are not the same and probably have nothing in common apart from their stammer. In this sense the person is more important than the stammer. We are all different in terms of nationality, physical and mental health, sex, gender identity, relationship status, age, education, employment status, career, intellect, IQ, EQ, artistic taste, class, wealth, religious affiliation and politics. Because of this we all experience our stammering differently and how we want to deal with it. A friend who stammers once said to me that we are not experts in stammering, only experts in our own stammer.

It is not simple, also because it is deeply ironic, if we are to believe American speech therapists Wendell Johnson and Joseph Sheehan. The former thought that stammering is what we do trying not to stammer, and the latter thought that if you did not avoid stammering you would not stammer. It  is also enigmatic, in that it is variable in severity and intermittent in occurrence, and 75% of people who stammer admit to hiding it to some degree.

The size of me and my stammer.

I was raised in white, middle-class England in the 1950s and definitely did not want to stammer. I wanted a cure. Admittedly this was not as bad as pre-war mid-west America where stammering therapist Charles Van Riper related that stammering was viewed as shameful as masturbating in public. He wanted to stammer less too.

I had ‘elephant’ ears as well and had them surgically pinned back to conform to normality. To be fair I think my parents wanted to protect me from teasing. Thank goodness that surgery on the tongue had gone out of fashion!

As a child I was very insecure, nervous and shy and grew up to be perfectionistic and a black and white thinker as a result. I was attracted to gurus – who by definition think one size fits all. Ron Hubbard wrote a book called Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health and claimed he could cure stammering. I dabbled with his occult methods until I realised he was a false messiah. In 1985 signed up for the Andrew Bell £600 cure, but thankfully never went. I will never forget one graduate telling me how ecstatic he was with his new found fluency at the end of the course,  but then devastated by the return of his stammering on the journey home when he filled his car with petrol and spoke to the attendant.  In 1986 I discovered Charles Van Riper, Joseph Sheehan and Wendell Johnson through the Association for Stammerers and non-avoidance became my new religion. I scorned the heresies of slowed speech, breathing techniques and fluency devices.

I liked being told what to do, and was attracted to these new gurus of ‘one size fits all’,  with their mantra of non-avoidance. However as nothing really worked for me I became more wary of dogma and decided on a more libertarian approach in my later life. I now believe it is up to us to know what size we are and what fits us best at the time. We may change and another size may fit better in the future. 

In  a twenty year break from the stammering community I pursued the mazes of psychotherapy and came out with more self-knowledge, but still hiding my stammer. I now accept this as my status-quo.

My size of therapy

I think I could be a ‘giant in chains’ – using my stammer as a defence mechanism, an excuse for my failures in life. Ironically I hid my defence mechanism with my avoidance of stammering. Enigmatically I was a stammerer who mostly appeared not to stammer.

Avoidance is the only size that fits me – but it is tight clothing and I cannot get it off.

The clothing I would like is a much looser fit (baggy) where I openly stammer with no shame, struggle or avoidance. Your choice of clothing can be affected by taste and fashion and can affect how you feel about yourself. Are you proud of yourself and want to show off or are you ashamed of your body and want to cover up?

I once had a very shiny/golden school overcoat that my mother bought for me. It was nothing like the dull blue ones everyone else wore. It was much too loud for my self-esteem/image – and as soon as I was out of sight of her waving me goodbye to school I would take it off and stuff it in my briefcase – even if it meant me getting wet! I can see now that is exactly how I treated my stammer – hide and suffer.

Other sizes of approach to try.

There are various sizes of therapists and their therapies, who differ in their style, techniques, qualifications, knowledge, expertise, experience, and their own level of stammering. A veritable smorgasbord for the individual to choose what fits him best.

Wendell Johnson, Joseph Sheehan and Charles Van Riper wanted us to acknowledge our stammering – but only because it would help make us more fluent. They were not proud of stammering. They did want you to fully acknowledge (not accept) your stammer – as a necessary step to increased fluency. Currently the McGuire Programme mainly provides a breathing technique to help you to overcome the affliction and suffering of stammering and become more eloquent as a result. Stammering Pride followers do not advocate any therapy at all.

The two main sizes of defining stammering – adversity or diversity.

The ‘adversity’ medical model of stammering sees it as a disorder of communication that needs treatment by the speech and language therapy profession. Speech therapy offers less stammering and more ‘fluency’. It generally takes a lot of time and effort. The concept of fluency was presumably adopted by speech therapists to medicalise the condition and offer treatment. I don’t think fluency is the opposite of stammering.The opposite of stammering is not stammering. The dictionary definition of fluency has no mention of stammering.

The medical model of stammering does not have to infer disability. There are people who stammer who do not consider themselves disabled. They are only unable to speak without stammering and have navigated their world successfully.

Pride-sized

I rejoined Stamma a couple of years ago and realised that Stammering Pride is the new kid on the stammering block. It goes with the progressive and liberal notion of ‘diversity’  of our times. It is getting a lot of attention and will no doubt be attractive to some. But it is important to remember that this new size does not fit all. We need to recognise and respect people who see stammering as an affliction that they suffer from and want to overcome. We should always be able to advocate for our own way and be able to constructively, criticise, not condemn, other ways. 

I have got a lot of theoretical sympathy with the concept of stammering pride, although I know it is not a practical size for me. Although I welcome this progressive movement towards diversity I recognise that some people who stammer may not. I wonder if the stammering pride route is attractive to me because I have not succeeded in stammering less. This could be less stammering pride – and more ‘resigned to stammering’. This is not the same thing as pure acceptance – that perhaps can only come from young children whose parents encourage it.

In my middle-age following the ideas of Johnson and Sheehan I was only accepting my stammering, by cutting down my avoidances, as a way to become more fluent. Not the same thing at all as true acceptance without a need for fluency. True acceptance will cut down all avoidances. This will eliminate your fear, tension and struggle which are a large part of your stammering problem, and should leave you with more open and easier stammering. This could be called stammering acceptance therapy? This approach is similar to the Avoidance Reduction Therapy of Joseph Sheehan – or the first two stages of Van Riper’s Block Modification (identification and desensitisation). However the fundamental difference is that there would be no thought that this would improve fluency. Currently most adults who avoid stammering will have to work hard at this acceptance and may need psychological help to achieve it. It will  be easier for young children to be taught this approach and take it into their adult life. I have recently tried stammering acceptance therapy and it has not worked for me. But it could be another size of therapy for people to try. The pride model shuns the notion of speech therapy, if not psychotherapy. It could adopt the notion of stammering acceptance therapy.

‘One Size Does Not Fit All’ might apply to charities, organisations and support groups for people who stammer too. 

I think one grouping for all people who stammer can make their ‘message’ sometimes contradictory. I think accommodating the ‘diversity’ and ‘adversity’ messages under one roof is confusing and alienating and dilutes the power of both messages. There could be one ‘diversity’ grouping for people who want to openly stammer with pride and advocate for less prejudice and discrimination against themselves in society. Then another ‘adversity’ grouping for people who want to stammer less would advocate for more speech and language therapy, as well as less prejudice and discrimination in society.

I am worried that the pride model is going to become ‘one size fits all’ and will marginalise  people like me. I am an old white man who still needs to appear fluent. I am still afflicted by my fear and avoidance of stammering and suffer as a result. I am very grateful to all the speech therapists who have helped me understand stammering. Psychotherapy has been more useful to me in understanding myself and my avoidance of stammering and coming to terms with it.

Humour has always been a good fit for me, so I will end on a lighter note. In the 1960s UK journalist and TV personality Patrick Campbell accepted his stammer and made light of it – “my attractive impediment “.  It became his famous trademark. He told some very funny stories about it. He worried about answering the phone – so did answer once when asked if he was Patrick Campbell, saying, without stammering, “No, he’s not here!”