Discussion: Do you notice a difference when you “fight” a block versus when you try to ease through it?

Discussion: Do you notice a difference when you “fight” a block versus when you try to ease through it? **Discussion: Do you notice a difference when you “fight” a block versus when you try to ease through it?** My reply: As a child my SLP taught me to speak with reduced muscle tension. Over time my audible, forceful blocks became silent blocks, but the frequency and duration of my blocks didn’t improve. The main question is then: Why? When my family members who stutter and I deliberately tried producing maximum muscle tension, it did not elicit any stuttering or blocks (not even close). This suggests - to me at least, that intentionally tensing the articulatory or laryngeal speech muscles does not elicit a speech block, at least in our own experiments. I later described this phenomenon to Brocklehurst, PhD, who proposed the following hypothesis: Brocklehurst (PhD) stated: Many people who stutter (PWS) might have developed distorted beliefs e.g., they might believe that they must first reduce tension to execute the speech plan. For example: A speech therapist tells me I have to decrease my muscle tension in order to be able to get the words out, and I have faith in his judgement. Then I perceive that I have not yet managed to make the desired reduction before speech execution can proceed. I believed I was too tense to be able to speak fluently. Then I computed that “excessive force/muscle tension” as an error. Resulting in a mismatch between actual perceived muscle tension and my desired muscle tension (error = approach-avoidance "cognitive" conflict). This anticipated error will then lead to a stricter regulation of speech-plan execution (i.e., it becomes more difficult to get the word/sound out). Ultimately, this prevents me from getting the word/sound out (at least, until such conflict has resolved). Conclusion So there is an almost infinite number of different things that people who stutter (PWS) might compute as an error, including not enough tension, too much tension, not enough willpower, words not sounding perfect enough, not being confident enough, the listener not being friendly enough, the environment not being conducive enough etc. Any of these beliefs/preconditions has the capacity to cause the release threshold to rise (to release words/sounds for execution). (see attached image which explains this concept in more detail) https://preview.redd.it/kxpxslkb6hsf1.png?width=1710&format=png&auto=webp&s=23059cee4b596493ef4eff3453a0e6c9b55b10ba \~\~ Your thoughts?