“You have a movie in your mind of your mother trying to kill your dad and you were afraid she would kill you?”
“Yes, and it terrified me.”
“So, we sure know where much of that terror comes from. Where do you feel that terror in your body?”
“In my jaw.”
There is enough information there to know where Sally learned to be fearful of speaking. Growing up in that terribly dysfunctional family, Sally learned that to survive it was best for her to remain quiet and invisible. Not mentioned above were comments about her father. Her dad also was critical of her. She never could be good enough for him. From her mother and father, Sally learned to be fearful of the judgments of other people.
Importantly, Sally embodied the emotions from the childhood trauma in her throat and in her jaw. In other words, her blocking was an attempt to remain invisible and to avoid judgment. As a result of therapy – which took a number of sessions over several months to complete – Sally has let those fears go and now speaks with much greater fluency. During those sessions we used many of the techniques described in this book. As a result, Sally has become much more resourceful, and has a very healthy and strong sense of self-esteem which permits her to disregard the judgments of others.
Blocking as avoidance
When relating to others, PWS often think: “I’ll avoid any situations around people or groups that will attract attention to me and expose this weakness.” “If I am around people I will try to cover up or block the stuttering so that I don’t look foolish.” This attitude demonstrates negatively stated (away from) outcomes (see Exercise 3.3). Negative outcomes or desires tend to create even more fear and start a spiral of negative thinking. Reframing breaks this vicious spiral. The art is to restate the intention in positive terms (Figure 6.1):
Original list from the case study: Alternative (positive, towards):
I am not going to attract attention to myself. I want to focus attention on …
I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities. I am going to show people my strengths.
I will not give others the chance to laugh at me. I can laugh at myself.
I will not let them see me struggle. I want other people to treat me with respect.
I will try to cover the stuttering up. Only by being open will I be able to change.
Figure 6.1: Positive reframes
If it appears the PWS is avoiding things, you could confront them with one of the reframes in the list below. Otherwise, the standard question to ask when the PWSmakes a negative statement is: “OK, so that’s what you don’t want. What do you want instead?” By stating the opposite, the person is confronted by congruency issues. Simply saying the opposite, as in “I want other people to treat me with respect” will bring up other potential issues that need to be resolved.
Reframing such beliefs requires the PWS to step outside their limiting belief frame and to consider alternatives. This is a fourth position activity, and it should be fun to do! (For further information on this, see Hall & Bodenhamer 2001, Chapter 6). Here are some more examples of how you can reframe a PWS’s statements about themselves:
Reframing outcome/purpose statements
I am not going to attract attention to myself.
“Actually most people want to grab other people’s attention. What makes you so different?”
“So I should ignore you?”
“So you’re not worth paying attention to?”
“What would happen if you did?” “What would happen if you didn’t?”
I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities.
“Why, where do you keep them? In a safe at home?”
“How do you know that you are vulnerable? Who decided that?”
“If I had that belief, I would have never left my parent’s home for I sure am vulnerable!”
“What would happen if you ‘celebrated’ your vulnerabilities and joined the human race?”
I will not give others the chance to laugh at me.
“But can you laugh at yourself?”
“Comedians work hard to get people to laugh at them.”
“If someone laughs at you because you block and stutter, who really has a problem, you or them? They just need to grow up, don’t they?”
“In the past year, how many people have laughed at you because of your blocking and stuttering?” “Did you join in?”
I will not let them see me struggle.
“You’d better hide under a blanket then.”
“You have struggled most of your life with this problem. Have you ever considered just letting the struggling go and just relax with an attitude of ‘I don’t care if they see me struggle or not’? If they have a problem with it, it is their problem.”
I will avoid any situations around people or groups that will expose this weakness.
“So it’s the hermit’s life for you then.”
“You mean, you don’t want to practice getting better?”
“What do you mean by the term ‘weakness’?”
“That sure is weak thinking, isn’t it?”
I will try to cover the stuttering up.
“Go on then. Show me how you do that.” “Don’t ‘try’ – just do it.”
“You mean, you have nothing worth saying?”
“How about covering up that kind of thinking?”
“And when you do that, what happens?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just admit the obvious and go ahead and just talk the best you could?”
Patterns for increasing self-esteem
[Adapted from the original by L. Michael Hall PhD (Hall, 1996, 2000, pp. 81–2).]
Accepting self-acceptance and appreciating self-appreciation
Because most PWS have low opinions of themselves, they need ways of boosting their confidence if they are to develop greater fluency. They need to stop identifying their sense of identity with a particular speech behavior and to accept and appreciate themselves more. This section considers what would happen to their speech if instead of identifying their blocking behavior with their sense of self they accepted and appreciated themselves as worthwhile people regardless of any stuttering?
We can identify three aspects of esteem:
Accepting who you are, “warts and all”.
Appreciating what you do, acknowledging what you are good at.
Awe for what you have the potential to become, what you aspire to.
One way of developing your self-worth is based on an interpretation of the 3Ps that Seligman refers to in his work on Learned Helplessness (see Chapter Two):
The first P is Personal, and relates to personal identity. This is where you need to demonstrate Acceptance.
Acceptance is about noticing your various qualities, whatever you judge them to be, and simply accepting “This is how I appear to be now.” “This is just one way of describing who I am.” You accept who you are without hiding anything, without going into denial, without pretending that everything is “just fine”. Just as there are always some personal qualities people do not like about themselves, there is always room for improvement, and a lifetime for doing it. There would be little point in living if you were “perfect”.
The second P is for the Pervasiveness of Behavior, and this is where you need Appreciation.
Every person has a number of skills they perform well without really thinking about them. You may consider them “ordinary” or “trivial” simply because for you they are no big deal. For example, you may be a great cook, love gardening, or find satisfaction in balancing the accounts. You might think “doesn’t everybody do this?” but the truth is, they don’t. Other people lacking those particular talents may admire your capability.
The third P relates to your way of thinking that your model of the world is Permanent, and this is where you need to develop a sense of Awe about what you can become!
Every human being has a reason for living. Some think of this as their mission or purpose.
Whatever the label, this notion is about becoming all that you might possibly become in your spiritual journey, in fulfilling your potential as a human being. And when you think about the richness of your life experience, this inspires a sense of awe and wonder, as you realize how much there can be … and there is even more than that!
Acceptance, Appreciation & Awe/Esteem Pattern
I have already mentioned that the primary goal for the speech pathologist in working with the PWS is to assist them in building up a healthy self-esteem that will allow them to feel sufficiently good about themselves so that caring whether they stutter becomes irrelevant. Once they release that concern, fluency improves. Consider the meaning frames I have elicited from PWS: “If PWS really feel good about themselves both when they are fluent and when they stutter, would blocking and stuttering have such negative meanings to them? If those negative meanings weren’t there, would they block and stutter?” The vast majority would not. Therefore, building up a resourceful self is imperative for the PWS.
In Chapter Two I mentioned how people layer their thoughts and lock the original thought in with judgments, opinions, conditions, and so on. Usually the PWS does this in a negative way, laying negative thought on top of negative thought. This has a multiplying effect on their fear and anxiety, and makes the block harder to shift. However, you can utilize the same kind of thinking but have it work for you by changing the nature of the thoughts you add. By building layers of positive thoughts and resources, and by applying them to their concept of their self the positive multiplying effect creates an even more empowered person.
Exercise 6.1: Increasing self-esteem
The purpose of the Self-Esteem pattern is to make sure the PWS has three kinds of powerful resources that will change the way they respond to those situations that used to lead to blocking.
Overview
Access resource state for each A: Acceptance, Appreciation, Awe.
Amplify each state and apply to your concept of self.
Identify a needed context for greater self-esteem.
Apply your powerful self-esteeming state where it is needed.
Imagine a new future.
Personal ecology check.
Figure 6.2: Accessing resources
1. Access a resource state for each A.
Access each state by remembering an occasion on which you were able to accept, appreciate or be in awe of something about yourself (Figure 6.2). Find a code or word for each of those states, so that you can access the state again when you choose.
Acceptance – Remember a time when you were able to accept something that challenged you: perhaps someone mentioned one of your personal qualities that you had not been aware of, or acknowledged one of your skills that you had been taking for granted. When you thought about it, you were able to accept that truth about yourself at that time.
Appreciation – Think of something that you do naturally and well, which you really appreciate as one of your talents. Are you proud of your family, your home, your work? All around you is evidence of your positive achievements. Feel the glow of self-appreciation and anchor that.
Awe – Think of the range of your potential as a human being – all the things you aspire to, that you desire to become, that you stand in awe of. What is there that just blows your mind because it is so awesome? I look up at the night sky and contemplate its vastness and its mystery; I listen to great music in awe and become immersed in its complexity and beauty.
2. Amplify the three states and apply each of them to your concept of self.
Amplify each state in turn so that it is robust enough to apply to your sense of self. Think of your self as meaning who you are as a unique person having your own life experiences, desires and capabilities. You can amplify the qualities of a state by making your image of it more colorful, bigger, brighter, and so on. Use positive and empowering language to support a strong sense of acceptance, appreciation and awe/esteem.
Activate each amplified resource in turn, and be fully in it. You could imagine stepping into a resource bubble and allowing it to permeate your whole being; or you could imagine your resource radiating from a source deep inside you, filling your whole body and even the space around you. In this way you have a stronger self-concept available for accepting, appreciating and esteeming more of yourself.
Apply these resources one at a time to your sense of self, to who you are (Figure 6.3). Just get a thought of yourself and apply each resource to that thought. You are meta-stating yourself using these three resource states. For example, I can just think of myself as “Bob” and then apply those states to that sense of “Bob”. “I accept Bob”, “I appreciate Bob”, and, “I stand in absolute amazement, awe and esteem of Bob.” It actually brings tears to my eyes every time I do it. This pattern asks you to love yourself. If that is a novel idea for you, go ahead and do it any-how, even if you have to force yourself to do it!
Figure 6.3: Increasing self-esteem
There are several ways of applying resource states. For example, you could first get into a resourceful state, and then being in that step into and merge with that other you. Or you could be in observer or fifth position and beam the resources to yourself, onto that you over there. Then step into that you and facing that higher self, accept those resources into your being.
Having applied your three resources of acceptance, appreciation and awe to your sense of self, you are now more personally empowered and ready to imagine yourself fully charged up in another context where this resource would be useful.
3. Identify a needed context for applying these three resources.
Decide in what context you would prefer a more resourceful response. Choose one of those situations where your self-esteem used to go into the gutter and where the blocking was particularly in evidence. This could be a context where you were inclined to feel self-contempt, question your own nature, doubt your abilities, or dislike yourself.
4. Apply your powerful self-esteeming state where it is needed.
Imagine seeing yourself in a comparable future “needy” situation and apply your new resourceful state from step 2 to that you, allowing your acceptance, appreciation and awe to transform that situation. Your point of view shifts as you associate into that other as you fully accept all the resources you now have available. Notice how this transforms the old context. Experience yourself now with this new sense of self-acceptance, self-appreciation and self-esteem.
5. Imagine a new future.
Imagine moving fully resourced through life in the weeks and months to come. Your life will be different because you have those resourceful states available to you. Put yourself in some typical situations where in the past you would have started blocking. Notice how you are now more fluent. Be aware of any further improvements you could make in the way you speak.
Doing this limits the amount of power others can have over you. Esteeming yourself means you care less about what others think about how you talk, and that allows you to care more for those people. You are better able to accept, appreciate and esteem them because you accept, appreciate and esteem yourself.
6. Personal ecology check.
Are all parts of you aligned with this new concept of yourself? If so, welcome that and thank yourself. If there is a part of you which is not OK with the new arrangement, find that part’s purpose for you and obtain its permission to let you think enough about yourself so that you will not allow what you think others may think of you to control how you speak. (See Exercise 5.2, step 7 for dealing with objecting parts.)
Become aware over the next period of weeks or months how your personal power or self-respect increases.
The Swish Pattern
The Swish Pattern is a way of replacing the strategy you don’t want with a more appropriate strategy that leads to fluency. Use this process for changing your response to an event that triggers the blocking behavior. Making a new connection takes only a little practice; your substituted response will be activated automatic
ally by the inciting incident. You could see it as rewiring the old stimulus-response linkage. The Swish process works by sending the unwanted response movie off into the background and replacing it with a more useful and desirable one. If this sounds familiar, it is because this pattern is similar to the Foreground/Background Pattern covered in Chapter Three. The Swish Pattern is powerful because you are installing a new behavioral response, and thereby moving toward the kind of person you want to become.
You can design swishes for yourself that set your mind, emotions, speech and behavior in a direction which aligns with your life purpose. Be drawn toward an image of yourself that is more valued, esteemed, loved, competent, happy, energetic and kind. This is a change of direction for people who block because they have developed the habit of seeing themselves experiencing blocking in their very next conversation. The Swish pattern retrains their mind to go beyond blocking, to even go beyond a concern for fluency, so that they can become all that they are inspired to be, so that they may be in awe of their personal capabilities and achievements.
Exercise 6.2: The Swish Pattern
In using the Swish Pattern, start by being fully associated into the old pattern. Then you can be pulled toward the new outcome image of the resourceful you. Many people find it is preferable to close their eyes during the process and open them between steps. Discover what works best for you.
Overview
I Have a Voice Page 16