* [Plank-walking analogy](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Plank-walking+analogy%22+%22SHEEhan%22): Anyone can easily walk across a 2-by-4 inch plank placed across the floor. But if it were placed between two tall buildings, or across a chasm, one would be in danger of falling off from the very effort engaged in trying to prevent it. For a stutterer, it increases associated conflict * The problem of stuttering cannot be adequately defined in terms of disfluency counts or speech interruptions * Most stutterers have learned to be wary of efforts to help them, for so many useless suggestions are freely offered by anyone. Although such initial resistance is virtually a part of the presenting problem, the really substantial resistance is likely to come following a certain amount of progress. Improvement and recovery in themselves involve role changes calling for difficult adjustments. The stutterer may become disappointed in the results of his new partial fluency, due to the loss of protective functions and secondary gains. He finds that he is not a "giant in chains" but an ordinary mortal who has many other limitations which had been obscured by his stuttering along with some of his capabilities. He discovers that there are two ways to be disappointed in life. One way is not to get what you wish for. The other way is to get it. * Speech therapies work for awhile which is probably due to the novel-stimulus effect, or distraction principle * Stuttering is perpetuated by successful avoidance, and the substitution of false fluency, or by inner patterns of stuttering, that makes ultimate recovery enormously more difficult, and at the end of this process, the stutterer is farther from a true recovery, not closer. * Stuttering becomes chronic in childhood when the stutterer learns successful suppression techniques (successful use of tricks or crutches) (suppressive mechanism). It is not the struggle, but the successful avoidance of struggle that perpetuates stuttering. Source list: [https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan/excerpts-from-the-writings-of-joseph-sheehan](https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan/excerpts-from-the-writings-of-joseph-sheehan) [https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan](https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan) [https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan/message-to-a-stutterer](https://ahn.mnsu.edu/services-and-centers/center-for-communication-sciences-and-disorders/services/stuttering/professional-education/the-comdis-field/remembering-the-contributions-of-those-who-have-passed-on/joseph-sheehan/message-to-a-stutterer)