commentr/StutterJune 8, 2025

Content

I read this book on self-therapy and one message that really stuck with me is "if you can speak without stuttering when you are by yourself, why can't you do it in every other situation?" I was dismissive at first, I thought it's just how stuttering works, but when I thought about it the more I started to ask myself the same question. Next time you start stuttering (with people you are comfortable with of course) try to pay attention to WHY you are stuttering. What's different about your articulation, your behaviour, the tension in your facial muscles, you feelings, or ANYTHING when you stutter and when you don't stutter. I found that this helped me a lot to improve my fluency. For example, I stutter on vowels a lot and I found out it was because I wasn't backing my voice with enough air pressure because I was forgetting to breathe. So now I focus on properly inhaling while talking and focus on pushing the air out when pronouncing vowels, with a slight prolongation if necessary. When I'm alone, I practice by deliberately taking deep breaths (almost exaggerating the technique) even when I'm not stuttering. I'm sure this isn't the best way but this is what worked for me. Hope this helps you as well : D And if you want to take a look at the self-therapy book, it's available somewhere online as PDF for free.

Themes

Coping & AdvocacyAnticipation & Avoidance

Subthemes

Fluency TechniquesOverthinking & MonitoringExperiential Association