The psychological aspects of stuttering

The psychological aspects of stuttering Hi everyone, Lots of people talk about the psychological aspects of stuttering, how social anxiety and anticipation of stuttering is what leads to stuttering. People talk about working on psychological aspects, like becoming more confident and then fluency will follow. I want to provide a different perspective on this. For many years throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I believed the same things. I believed that if I worked on myself, that If i carried myself with confidence, real or fake, that I would relieve myself of stuttering. However, whether I am feeling confident, or whether I am feeling down, I still stutter or I still fluently speak. There is no reliability in tracking how I feel and whether I stutter or not. Personally, I sometimes stutter by myself, in a group, on specific letters, with one person, with my grandmother or even with my nieces and nephews, but I can also be fluent in those same situations, on those same letters. I've given presentations where I am completely fluently, I've ordered food where I cant get a word out, and I've also ordered food when I am completely fluent. Stuttering feels like something that happens to me, rather than anxiousness and my psychology causing stuttering. Now I want to take this a few steps further. It is possible that stuttering is what led to social anxiety, and the anticipation of a future stutter, rather than social anxiety and anticipation leading to stuttering to begin with. More importantly, the people that say "be confident", "Just relax yourself so your less anxious", "work on the words that you anticipate", are actually putting the blame on us. They are saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and that we need to change ourselves in order to speak fluently. I think that is not right at all. Focusing narrowly on the psychological aspects, is just that, too narrow. Moreover, many years ago, I desperately wanted to know what the hell is going on in stuttering. I went into the research and I discovered that there are things going on in the brain that occur in children and in adults that stutter. When I realized that there are things going on the brain, I felt free. I felt a weight completely lifted off my shoulders. For once, I could finally stop pointing the finger at myself. For once, I could finally forgive myself. And you can too. For me, this has been incredibly therapeutic. Not only have I stopped going round and round in circles, but I am now optimistic that there is hope that we will one day be able to address what's going on in stuttering.