Talk to a Professional
Good afternoon, my name is Dara, and I am a speech-language-pathology student at the University of South Carolina. I read the article; Our Vulnerability is Our Strength by Willemijn. The article focused on the author working through her fears to tackle everyday life and how being a part of the stuttering community and interacting with other people who stutter can aid in creating a safe environment for sharing and opening up about fear and anxiety. In our stuttering course we have talked about how stuttering is what we see on the surface, but many are faced with fear, anxiety, guilt, isolation etc. As a future speech-language-pathologist, do you have any advice on how to approach the fear and underlying aspects of stuttering?
Dear Dara,
HI! Congrats on being an SLP student at South Carolina! What an exciting time for you!
Helping another person navigate their own fears, anxieties, hesitations, and negative perceptions is what counseling is all about. It is also why it is SO VITAL that all SLPs become (over time) effective with their counseling skills.
As you might have read in other post, the first skill to practice is active and mindful listening so you can be aware of what the client needs, wants, and desires so you can thus create a plan based on them as individuals with their input at all times. If we don’t practice engaging in listening we will miss those GOLDEN MOMENTS (as my good friend Dr. James Panico says) where the client can make their own connections to growth.
As said earlier, learning all you can about different styles of counseling and psychotherapy. Every interaction we have with clients, peers, and families, is based on counseling skills. The more you learn and practice about Mindfulness, ACT, CBT, Solution Focus Therapy, REBT, and more, the more you can use these skills when engaging with clients who come to you with fears and anxiety about speaking.
Those are just a few thoughts. I will let my great peers here chime in too!
With compassion and kindness,
Scott
Hi Dara! Good question! I think it’s important to recognize that the emotions you mentioned are part of what a lot of people experience – not just people who stutter. We have all been through those emotions before so, even though we may not stutter, we can probably empathize through our own experiences. It is very normal for people who stutter to experience emotions such as these. I like to validate what people are feeling – “thank you so much for telling me that” or “it makes sense to me why you feel this way.” Listening and empathizing are very important skills.
I don’t approach therapy with the intention of solving a client’s problem. I listen, validate, and together we brainstorm and problem-solve. Of course, we have some very helpful resources for that, such as CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy)and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), as Scott mentioned. It’s also important to continue to update your counseling skills. Finally, connecting clients to groups, such as NSA (National Stuttering Association), FRIENDS, and Camp Shout Out, is very important.