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Intentions Hey guys, new to the sub but not new to stammering 😅 About me, I’m Chris, M, 31. I started stammering in my mid teens, began creeping into my speech when trying to ask questions, Who, what, when etc, these are still problem areas for me. I’m completely covert, my family didn’t know I had speech problems until I told them when I was 23. Note, my twin brother is an overt stammerer, has been since the age of 4/5. I think this played a big role in my stammer development (which I can talk about more if you want). I then worked in a call centre for 2 years, aged 17-19, I used to be great on the phone, never had any issues, I had a tonne of confidence, then one day I couldn’t get my words out and I had a bit of a panic attack, this then started the vicious cycle of speech anxiety on the phone. To this day I struggle on the phone and avoid calls at all cost. Then in 2nd year of my university, I was giving a presentation to my class and hard blocked on the word ‘ethics’! I had never blocked publicly before, I hide my blocks very well. I never had issues with presentations, again my confidence carried me in them. I did Drama in school with no issues and enjoyed talking under pressure in front of people as I felt I was better than most. I had a panic attack infront of my whole class, couldn’t face the room anymore and barely got through the presentation. I even messaged my girlfriend straight after telling her that I’d need therapy, as I knew how much damage I had done to myself psychologically by reacting like that. I’m terrible with letting things go, and I certainly didn’t let that trauma go! I went through a really tough period, maybe 3-4 years with terrible anxiety. I went through speech therapy. The techniques honestly didn’t help because I will never use them(that’s on me, speech therapy is great, just not completely suited to me) but I loved being able to confide in my therapist. I’m probably 95% fluent, and I change the words for the other 5% or just pause until I’m ready to overcome a block. Although I hide my stammer very well, I still have speech anxiety and it has negatively impacted my life. Recently I’ve been doing much better as I’ve worked in a comfortable job, where I never have to phone anyone. So I’ve had an easy few years regarding anxiety as it’s easy for me to avoid situations where I’d struggle. Yes it’s good for my mental health, but also feels like I’m hiding myself. Anyway, I’ve read books, forums, watched videos, the whole lot, in hopes of finding some trick or cure to help me. Of course there are no tricks. But what I have found is a recurring theme amongst psychology that I believe is probably closest to the answer. William Parry (YouTube) eludes to the intention of speaking fluently and how this is what drives the stammerer to ultimately block, amongst other things like the fear response from your amygdala, fight or flight etc. Then I also happened to read Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s search for Meaning and at the end of that book he expresses his own therapy technique called logotherapy (might have spelt that wrong) and in here he uses a young boy with a stammer as an example. Example summary - there’s a poor young boy with a terrible stammer that he has always struggled with. One day he has no money and jumps onto the back of a tram and tries to hide himself. However, the conductor finds and demands payment. The young boy wants the conductor to feel sorry for him, and he knows if he speaks he will block badly and he might get sympathy, so he opens his mouth, but begins to speak completely fluently. Frankl believes that a paradoxical intention exists, where if you want something to happen so badly, the opposite is likely to happen. If you have an intention to speak fluently, you won’t! This isn’t just related to speech, he also speaks about its role in the likes of erectile dysfunction. Placing intention into a natural process disrupts the mechanism. Only people who stammer try to speak fluently, everyone else just speaks (yes this is easier said than done for us). This is also partly why we don’t stammer when we sing, the main intention of singing is not the word but the melody of the song. (Other biomechanics such as continuous phonation are reported to help with singing but the point still stands). I’ve seen it firsthand in myself over the years. I’ve seen my intention change to one of needing to be fluent, rather than just letting my speech happen naturally. I used to have a phone voice (we all know what that is, the ridiculously over the top, well spoken voice our parents or colleagues put on to sound proper and professional) that I used with confidence, now I speak timidly in hopes of avoiding blocks. I’m going to try my best to stop with my intention to be fluent and go back to trying to express myself through the melody of my voice, through intonation, tone, volume etc. Go back to enjoying speech, rather than dreading it. Sorry for a bit of a ramble. I didn’t really plan what I was going to write, I just laid out some thoughts. I love that everyone here supports each other. Feel free to ask me anything, or challenge anything I’ve put in here. Thanks for your time. Chris