>*"Even when I wasn't thinking about anything, my stuttering continued. So in short, isn't ignoring it normally beneficial for stuttering?"* Yes I agree with everything you said. (*at the end of this comment I'll reply on what you said about "ignoring leads to more fluency")* I argue that Re-learning automatic processes ≠ speaking on auto-pilot. As you pointed out in your comment: if we stop thinking (which basically means that we start speaking on auto-pilot).. then we continue stuttering. Yes indeed, why is that? I think this is because.. if we speak on auto-pilot, we essentiailly give back our control to the subconscious and thus, also give back our control to the subconscious automatic conditioning (stimulus > CR).. in other words, it makes sense that if we speak on auto-pilot, we continue having a stutter disorder, agreed? So. automatic processes ≠ speaking on auto-pilot which a lot of people on reddit seem to overlook in my opinion. If this is true. Then I think, one of the most primary fundamental questions, that I think stutterers should ask is: *How do I reinforce automatic processes and NOT auto-pilot speech?* In my own stutter journey, instead of reinforcing auto-pilot speech (such as, "not thinking"), I allowed negative or unhelpful thoughts and emotions.. and despite all that, still choose to instruct motor execution by "thinking the speech signal" in my head (that is, i.e., without any desire, without telling myself "I choose to stutter", without willpower, without adrenaline, without trying in any other way).. so I simply and only thought *the signal (*in basically the same way how one would think the signal when one moves their arm or leg resulting in automatic processes ≠ auto-pilot movement). Instead of reducing emotions that I couldn't tolerate.. I created a new value judgements: "I should not reduce negative emotions when executing speech". Because I realized that it was the value judgement "I should reduce negative emotions when executing speech, especially in difficulty speaking situations" - was unhelpful, and it was exactly what made me intolerant to start with. In conclusion, in my own stuttering, it was not the negative emotion, but the value judgement about the negative emotion that made my stutter worse. So: value judgement > negative emotion (conditioned stimulus) > fear of social rejection (unconditioned stimulus) > Conditioned response (the fear of social rejection that changes from word to word, and from moment to moment - resulted in poorly fine-tuning of speech execution > outcome: blocks) Lastly, I agree with you that thinking about nothing (where we basically *ignore* conditioned stimuli) may (often?) lead to more fluency. Such as, by focusing on breathing, or focusing on WHAT you say and not how you say it, or focusing on the listener instead of your speech performance, etc etc) - can induce fluency, agreed? But the questoin is: what do we "*not think about"* that leads to fluency? Of course. The answer to this question must be different for each person who stutters.. if stutterers distract themselves from conditioned stimuli, it could lead to "not thinking about" stutter pressure, external validation, the need to speak more fluently, a feared word.. essentially it can be anything, agreed? that is, anything that we believe "we should increase or decrease" for speech execution to proceed. Probably anything that we believe (such as blocks are good or bad) can trigger our stuttering. So I think that the approach-avoidance conflict is primarily based on our own subjective opinion.. like for example, it doesn't matter if our listeners think that we need to hurry to get the words out, ultimately, it's our own subjective opinion whether we believe we need to hurry to say the word \[conditioned stimulus = time pressure\] that triggers stuttering. Would you agree with this statement?