In your own thoughts. If we happen to stutter without feeling anxiety or anticipation. In such a case, could the approach-avoidance conflict (i.e., defense mechanism) still be triggered by certain stimuli resulting in involuntary stuttering as the outcome?

In your own thoughts. If we happen to stutter without feeling anxiety or anticipation. In such a case, could the approach-avoidance conflict (i.e., defense mechanism) still be triggered by certain stimuli resulting in involuntary stuttering as the outcome? I think that anticipation or social anxiety can in some cases (but not in all of the cases) - trigger our stutter defense mechanism (or approach-avoidance conflict), agreed? Anyway, this is just my own take on it I think the important thing we need to know is, anticipation and anxiety are actually conditioned stimuli. Consider this, acceptance, desensitization or word-substitution may induce fluency because of the conditioning (on a psychosocial level) that had previously occured. I hope we can at least agree this far. However. not all conditioned stimuli are inherently negative. That is.. even if we are not aware of anxiety or anticipation.. there may still be a conditioned response we are unaware of, and which responds to a subconscious conditioned stimulus where the outcome is involuntary stuttering. Conditioning is a process of learning in which a stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus leading to a learned reaction (conditioned response) to the previously novel stimulus,.. or reward + punishment stimuli shaping behavior (which again is not stuttering itself obviously, but this doesn't negate an underlying defense mechanism in response to stimuli). ultimately, all conditioned stimuli (whether negative, positive, or neutral) are linked to an unconditioned stimulus, which I believe, in stuttering, is likely a fear of social rejection (like external validation or something similar). A big clue, I think, is that we often speak fluently when alone, but if we add a person to the mix, our subconscious may trigger the stuttering defense mechanism—even when we don’t consciously feel anticipation or anxiety. So it makes much more sense now, that conditioned stimuli don’t necessarily have to involve anticipation or anxiety. I think it could further suggest that negative stimuli are basically 'overhyped' in the stuttering community, while positive or neutral stimuli (that trigger a defense mechanism) are simply ignored - kindly refer to below image (that i created). I went in much more detail [here, a comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/1i8o638/comment/m97vec4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)of today where I’ve shared my own perspective on why this defense mechanism, in response to stuttering triggers, may have slowly and gradually become more subconscious over time. **Your thoughts?** https://preview.redd.it/580t1q59u9fe1.png?width=762&format=png&auto=webp&s=dec97513b7ed61a8c829f8716243ae25ed69d6ed