The simultaneous activation leading to an isometric effect with no net effect on the glass is a great way to put it. I agree that is essentially what happens. I agree with most of what you said. However, in regards to the underlying factor being anticipation versus global model of the self, I honestly can't tell which is better. Let's deconstruct it. I believe we would agree our stuttering began through episodes of anticipation which then contributed to the global model, the self-convincing. We didn't just wake up one day and convinced ourselves of stutter without having some precursor that led us to the belief. This is not enough to claim anticipation is the underlying factor though. Take the sound P you mentioned. We may have stumbled on it before, and so an anticipation effect starts to manifest. To your credit, the global self-model then becomes consciously convinced the sound P is the problem. But what if we only struggled with the P sound when it succeeded a certain letter or syllable? And now that we turned it conscious through convincing, we struggle with the P sound in all situations whereas before we might have struggled only in that specific sequence. This relates to your concern with the self-convincing. What I would then say determines which is the better way to claim the underlying factor to be is effectiveness in reversing and/or curing the condition, with anticipation being one node of intervention and the global self-model the other. Further, we would then need to derive a successful approach to the node so we can arrive to the desired response and outcome. Now, we might have our differences at the approach bit. If I understand you correctly, you espouse a verbalized approach to undoing these conditioned aspects of our identity, i.e. I am not a stutterer, I don't struggle with the P sound. Be it the anticipation or the global model, suppressing my inner speech or verbalizing through affirmative self-talk has never worked for me. It falls apart sooner or later. My stutter has gotten much better over the years, especially recent years. It didn't happen through consciously convincing myself otherwise or even directly altering my anticipation patterns. It just happened. This is where I would lean to your global model as the underlying factor, but not the convincing part. From a personal perspective, I just realized I put myself through more hell than anyone can ever put me through. And I have many other attributes that overshadow my stutter. And I just no longer give a fuck what people think of me. Not what they think of my stutter. What they think of me. Ultimately, considering neither my explanation or yours seem sufficient to cover the entire picture, it means there are other factors at play too. And it might point to the existence of another node of intervention higher up the chain than these two nodes which could effect a definitive solution. We just aren't aware of it yet.