postr/StutterAugust 4, 2020

About speech therapy/techniques

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About speech therapy/techniques Just an hour ago, my parents and I quarreled heatedly about me still not being able to overcome my stuttering though I'm 24 and just finished college. It was really a tense confrontation. To be honest, they are not wrong, though. They told me that no one would hire me because of my stutter and I would fail in the interviews, which is correct. It is totally my fault that I didn't take this seriously during the five years of my undergrad studies. Anyway, this is the venting part. Let me come to the point. I received speech therapy when I was 16. My therapist used the Van Riper approach as many therapists around the world do. First, he got me desensitized and taught me fluency techniques. Even though I overcame the fear of being teased about it to a great extent, I have a hard time applying the techniques after the sessions. The secondary behaviors like tongue clicks surface again. What came to my mind is that the applicability and effectiveness of these techniques are extremely questionable due to these two circumstances in my life: (1) I'm an introvert guy with few friends. I spend most of my time inside, which forces me to stay usually "silent". This being the case, my stutter worsens time to time. My question is what good the speech technique does me if I have hardly a chance to apply it as I don't have a social life other than my family? I mean, I can't even make friends and socialize. Then, there is no difference between the lack and existence of the fluency technique for stutterer and introvert guys like me. When I speak less, it will (and does) automatically gets worse anyway. (2) This is the most paradoxical one. Almost every job takes this problem seriously, right? My therapist always told me not to hide my stuttering with filler words or tongue clicks, instead "just naturally stutter" when I feel like my speech worsens so that it can be modified again later with fluency techniques. This was okay until I graduate. If I focus on not hiding it and stutter during my professional life, wouldn't it be a huge problem for job admission officers or my possible employers? Let's say I blocked and blocked until I spelled out the word in front of my students as a teacher. Wouldn't my employer fire me in this case? The therapy dictates that we should return to the original state of stuttering but in reality, it is hard to do this. We may have to hide it one way or other at job. Bottom line is I'm just confused, guys. What do you think?

Themes

Therapy & ProfessionalAnticipation & AvoidanceIdentity & DisabilitySchool & Work

Subthemes

Therapy ExperiencesPositive Therapy TechniquesAvoidance & SubstitutionAuthenticity vs. MaskingEmployment & Career