Comment #7: > *"Because what ever stops me from just saying it I can already feel, and how ever many times I repeat, until that lifts and it just becomes like any other word."* Yes exactly. So: when we are 2-3 years old, we might do whole-word repetitions but not blocking. Blocking typically occurs later, after extensive learning (i.e., conditioning) in the phase where we want to speak more socially appropriate. See it like this./ Over time, as very young children, we learn to cultivate a need to overcompensate through heightened regulation of speech execution. >*For example: Monitoring my own speech disfluencies more - resulting in believing that my ability to regulate speech execution - is not good enough to kick-start the automatic processes. Resulting in a need to make a conscious effort to kick-start the automatic processes (i.e., to do something other than signaling - to kick-start the automatic processes). which then result in a need to overcompensate through heightened regulation of speech execution.* Passive unintended discrimination due to stuttering: Negative language around stuttering. Perfectionist society. Time limited speaking opportunities. Listeners start cultivating criticism for talking back. The older the child becomes, the more overemphasis on polite, measured, or appropriate speech execution regulation. And then over time, we learn to need to impose positive and negative value judgements on the conditioned response, as explained earlier. (conditioning) Over time, we start believing that we can detect when our approach-avoidance conflict will malfunction - by focusing on specific sensations, thoughts or emotions. In other words, we start believing that certain emotions or situatoins etc etc will trigger the approach-avoidance conflict. But it's exactly such conditioning that leads to malfunctioning of the approach-avoidance conflict. This is the basis of the approach-avoidance conflict, how it is created. Conclusoin, so over time, we start believing that our ability to detect a malfunctioning in the approach-avoidance conflict, is positive (i.e., good) because it makes speech execution easier. However, it's quite the opposite, because it further malfunctions the approach-avoidance conflict (mechanism), and it leads us away further from subconscious fluency. So I think it’s more like an underlying psychological rule or expectation that says, *“you can’t let this word go yet”* — like there’s some conditional factor that hasn't been satisfied. That conditional factor is, over time, associated to avoidance-approach conflict, which is usually driven by our perception of this fear that you pointed out, and especially, our need to reduce this fear first before we should proceed with speech execution. And this fear is not always *felt* as intense fear in the moment. Especially when we are comfortable, and still trigger the approach-avoidance conflict, this fear is basically super subtle and subconscious (like a reflexive freeze response) in my opinion. it’s almost like I’m subconsciously trying to satisfy the condition so that the word can finally pass through. I think what you're calling "waiting until it lets go" is actually your approach-avoidance mechanism giving you permission once that rule i.e., expectation - is no longer active or is fulfilled