I Have a Voice

by Bob G Bodenhamer

  Beliefs about self

  The PWS usually has a number of limiting beliefs about who they are, and come to identify with the negative descriptions of themselves which they connect to the blocking and stuttering.

  CASE STUDY 5

  Sam had stuttered since a small child. He grew up in a nation that was under attack from a neighboring more powerful nation. If this wasn’t bad enough, Sam grew up in a home where his parents constantly fought. He had clear memories of being in his bedroom listening to his parents fighting.

  The insecurities arising from their hostility had a more profound effect on Sam than did his memories of hearing bombs explode. That says something about the importance of growing up in a secure environment.

  Sam developed such beliefs as:

  “There is no meaning to life. The more I achieve, the less I feel fulfilled.”

  “Marriage is the end of love because it creates a miserable life.”

  “No one can have enough girls.” (If marriage is the end of love, how could anyone settle down with only one woman?)

  “The only way one can find fulfillment is to die.”

  “People who are happy are kidding themselves.”

  “Nothing will make me happy.”

  “Life is ‘exile’.”

  “People who are nice are not real.”

  “People who are ugly and mean are real.”

  Those views of the world gave Sam some real challenges. Fearing the world, Sam was constantly on guard:

  “People are watching me. They are waiting to catch me in a weak moment so that they can take advantage of me. I have to be constantly on guard to make sure that they don’t hurt me.”

  Sam’s belief that other people were out to get him is an extreme example of how PWS perceive other people as always judging their blocking. Like Alan (Case Study 7, below), his motto was: “One must remain vigilant at all times lest someone take advantage of you or even kill you.” Sam took that to extremes. I have frequently found similar though less extreme beliefs about the world in people who block (Figure 2.1).

  “It is not OK to stutter.” “People judge the content of what I am saying.”

  “I fear being rejected.” “I will not let them see me struggle.”

  “Others expect me to stutter.” “I will not give others the chance to laugh at me.”

  “I feel hurt (not validated).” “I will avoid situations that expose vulnerabilities.”

  “I don’t measure up.” “I must be right or people will judge me.”

  “I feel isolated from others.” “I am scared of speaking in public.”

  “My life is out of control.” “I need to be respected and loved to be fluent.”

  “I cannot speak.” “People validate or determine my worth.”

  “I am ‘less than’.” “I will not show my vulnerabilities.”

  “I look foolish.” “I must protect myself by not getting involved in relationships.”

  “I am going to attract attention.”

  “People always judge me.”

  “I must conceal my emotions.”

  “What people say about me becomes truth.”

  “I must protect myself from being hurt by others.”

  Figure 2.1: Beliefs about fearing what other people may think

  Most PWS can usually identify with almost every one of these beliefs. The trouble is they do not entertain such beliefs one at a time. Instead, they keep adding them, layer upon layer, on top of their previous thoughts. Each time they imagine the often terrible fear of what others may think of them because they block and stutter they build their “demon”. Every time they think about this growing mass of negativity around their behavior, it gives it more substance. Not surprisingly, the PWS eventually comes to feel totally powerless to defeat their stuttering demon (Figure 2.2).

  Figure 2.2: Layering thoughts

  CASE STUDY 6

  A PWS creates layers of negative thinking which lead to blocking. By unpeeling each layer and finding the core thought, the PWS has the opportunity for changing those limiting beliefs to ones which are more positive and supportive. For example, Sally created a web of negative and limiting beliefs of herself as a person. Here are some of the multiple layers of thoughts Sally was using to maintain her blocking (Figure 2.3). This had become embodied in her chest, neck, stomach and jaw.

  “I am flawed.” “I am a poor performer.”

  “I am foolish.” “I am not a good communicator.”

  “I am inadequate.” “I am an embarrassment.”

  “I am a ‘stutterer’.” “I don’t want to look like a fool.”

  “I am worthless.” “I am frustrated with my life.”

  “I am insecure.” “I need protection from life.”

  “I am timid.” “I need to change due to my stuttering.”

  “I am anxious.” “I am more sensitive.”

  “I am tense.” “I can’t handle criticism.”

  “I am shamed.” “I will not do anything that draws attention to myself.”

  “I am not enough.”

  “I pity myself.”

  Figure 2.3: Layers of beliefs

  What happens to your state as you read through these two lists of negative frames? It is highly likely that you will find yourself going deeper and deeper into a negative state. The more you do “stinking thinking” the more of a “stinking state” you go into. How do you get out of this vicious spiral? One way is to think differently. If you are feeling down, Stop! right now, and get yourself back up into a good state for being curious about how to change your thinking.

  You change how you think by changing your physiological state. Jump up and down, walk, run, play sport – anything that makes you feel good, happy, more alive, alert, and so on. Physical exercise changes your state. So right now, what could you do to make yourself feel really great and fully alive?

  Remember: you are in control, you can choose to stop your debilitating thinking patterns. After all, you create the meaning of your experience. You know that you can change your mind by perceiving the world from a different point of view, to see the glass as half full, rather than half empty – by engaging in reframing. You examine your thoughts and then relabel them, reorganize them, reevaluate them, or even find them so ridiculous that you burst out laughing!

  If thinking negative thoughts leads to blocking, then thinking positive thoughts can lead to fluency. Action follows thought. It makes a difference which kind of content you have in mind – and you are ideally positioned to decide that. However if thinking positively is not your usual pattern then you need to practice filling your mind with resourceful thoughts. A resource is anything that puts you in a good state, something you apply to a limiting situation in order to improve it. For example, in the present circumstances, a resource could be your ability to step back or disconnect from a debilitating mass of negative beliefs.

  When the PWS disconnects from the negative web of thoughts and feelings attached to their blocking and stuttering they immediately become empowered and able to recover their fluency in speech. As a clinician, your goal is to get the PWS to disconnect from that debilitating web which they have been weaving since childhood. By disengaging the emotional attachments from their behaviors around speaking, they can adopt a more resourceful perception of themselves as worthy adults, no matter how they perform.

  Using the maps of childhood

  How often do people use their mental maps from childhood rather than updating them throughout their adult life? The PWS is metaphorically treating their childhood map as an accurate representation of the current situation. They are responding now to a trigger that has its origins way back in some traumatic childhood experience. In re-living that experience they respond as they did then by stuttering.

  Alan (below) spent most of his long adult life living in a dysfunctional family in a state of constant fear of other people. As a consequence, he was unable to free himself from blocking and stuttering. The block
ing was a direct result of that unconscious childhood learning. When he called particular people on the phone or spoke with them in public, in his mind he felt like a child and instantly behaved in a childlike manner. His out-of-date map told him it was time to be afraid once more. It makes sense, therefore, to ask the PWS how old they feel when they are in the blocking and stuttering state. They will be able to tell you, and they may surprise themselves when they realize how young they are acting!

  CASE STUDY 7

  One of my clients, Alan, has a business that involves renting out apartments and town houses. When he talks to a prospective tenant, he tends to panic and block. During my first telephone conversation with him he said:

  “I have to produce. I have to produce. I have to rent these units. It is my responsibility. If I don’t rent these units I will not have any income. I will become bankrupt. I will be out in the streets! Everything in my life is out of control!”

  Alan has these immense fears even though he has adequate financial resources. In fact he doesn’t have to continue working. Yet these fears are so ingrained that they override all adult reasoning.

  Further inquiry revealed that he viewed his world as a place of immense competition. Alan’s grandparents immigrated to the US from a country that had experienced tremendous horrors; his people had undergone persecution. These fears had been passed down from generation to generation and were deeply embedded in him. Alan treats the world as a place to be feared. His motto is “One must remain vigilant at all times lest someone take advantage of you, and even kill you.” In Alan’s mind, everyone is out to get him.

  To compound this, Alan grew up in a terribly dysfunctional family. His mother and father fought constantly. Alan’s father came from a very violent family. As a younger man his father fought professionally, and this evolved into physically violence with both Alan and his brother. Consequently Alan developed the belief, “If I raise my hand, I will be slaughtered. I don’t have any ‘power’.”

  His father had also inculcated into Alan the belief that, “You have to get on on your own and take care of business. You have to.” Alan took this to mean, “I have no support and I must do it on my own.” His dad taught him, “The door is wide going in and narrow coming out.” By that he meant that it is easy to get in a bad situation but hard to get out of it. Coming from this domineering and violent father, Alan took these beliefs to heart. To Alan the world was not a friendly warm place, but a hostile enemy against which he had to constantly battle in order to survive.

  Alan described his mother as “a very mean person.” She was “always making fun of people and putting them down.” As with all children, Alan personalized this by thinking, “If I do anything wrong, then I will be made fun of.” Alan summarized his world: “I lived my life on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.” He viewed his world as a mean, terrible, fearful and violent place that he was powerless to deal with.

  If you take all those emotions that Alan experienced and embody them in the chest, throat and jaw – you have a block.

  On one occasion Alan exclaimed, “The little kid (himself as a child) is getting back at his parents by being obstinate by stuttering. Everything else in my life is out of control so I will show them that I can control my speech by stuttering and they can’t do anything about it. When I stutter, I embarrass them.”

  People who grow up in a violent, insecure, fearful, world, tend to generalize and assume that the entire world is similar to that one they grew up in. I have found that many PWS view the world as a place where “people are out to get them.” Several of my clients have spoken with great fear about how “people are watching me to take advantage of me.” To such people the world is an unfriendly place and they have few resources to deal with it. These beliefs usually spring from having a childhood like Alan’s. Let me repeat that I have never worked with a PWS whose problems behind their fears did not originate in childhood – and that applies to mental-emotional problems in general.

  Using outdated maps

  Sam employs some beliefs about life which “support” his fearful behaviour. For example, that “Marriage is the end of love because it creates a miserable life” comes directly from his childhood experiences of his parent’s fighting. When I provided him with a counter example of my wife and I who have been happily married for 38 years, he responded with his belief from childhood, “That is not ‘real’.” In other words, my “evidence” didn’t count. It did not work because I wasn’t speaking to an adult – I was speaking to a “temporary” child in an adult’s body, and that child could not conceive of a happy marriage even one right in front of him. Operating off a childhood map fails to provide an accurate perception of the present reality that the person is living in.

  How do we develop such limiting beliefs about our relationships with others? We know that they are learned and reinforced over time. As infants we are obviously totally dependent on caregivers to provide for our needs. In growing up we move from dependence to independence as we develop a richer sense of self. However, we need a secure foundation in order to mature into a healthy adult. In those early years we need a secure environment and must experience unconditional love by bonding with our parents. Without that, we grow up like Sally, feeling isolated and fearful of other people. Sally learned that adults were dangerous and were to be avoided. Thus she felt a need to be invisible. Had Sally had a loving and accepting mother, supported by a loving and supportive father, Sally would not have feared social settings so much. And Sally, in all likelihood, would not have grown up blocking. Remember that she embodied those negative emotions from the lack of bonding and unconditional love in her throat and jaw.

  Meaning frames about self

  If you have worked with PWS, you have probably frequently heard their beliefs about their blocking. Often the PWS is not consciously aware of the thought patterns that create that rich web of associations in their model of the world. One thought leads to another, and to another, and very soon the PWS is deeply enmeshed in a debilitating frame of meaning. For example:

  When I make a phone call I get nervous. When I get nervous I have the thought, “I bet I will block.” Why do I always do this? Why can’t I stop? I know I will block. I always have. Let me see. What do I need to say when I make that call? What words can I use that I won’t block on …?

  Having got this far, it is hard to turn back. But turn back they must. Your task is to find ways of intervening that will help them do that.

  Being in control

  PWS commonly say that they feel out of control with their speech. This contributes mightily to their fearing how others perceive them, because they certainly cannot control what other people think. The need to control is paramount to a person who blocks.

  Here is Betty’s story:

  My parents got divorced when I was six months old. I only saw my father on the weekends. He remarried, and his second wife had two children from her previous marriage. Her daughter was the same age as me. My stepmother hated me because I was a pretty little girl. She was incredibly sarcastic and nasty. I couldn’t tell my father because “I had to please him and make him happy”, and I didn’t want to lose his love. Even when I visited him, he would ignore me and would leave me with “those people”. I was full of shame, anger, sadness, fear and agitation. Later mom started meeting with a group of people and she left me alone. I was so alone. And then Mom became very critical of me ….

  These statements are typical of the clients I work with. Needless to say, such experiences are not conducive to creating a sense of power and resourcefulness in one’s life. Growing up in a family where the environment is chaotic and unpredictable will in many cases lead a person to believe they are powerless. They often grow up without a sense of being in control. Sometimes people who put a high value on control try to compensate by becoming control freaks, wanting to control everything and everyone around them. When they discover that the world cannot easily be controlled, they then perceive the world as failing
them(as their parents failed them) and develop a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. The more their control strategy fails to work, the more powerless and helpless they feel.

  In many cases, people who have been overwhelmed with pain in childhood, and even adulthood, give control over to others. They just tend to give up. Think of the statements in Figure 2.4 as expressing a lack of personal control.

  To reveal something about the childhood environment that led to the creation of the beliefs that life was out of control and that they must work to maintain control, ask the PWS: “How long has your life been out of control?” “When did you first sense that you had no control over your environment?”

  “As a child my parents just ignored me.” “My parents were fast talkers.

  “I was on the ‘outside’.” “My parents insisted: ‘you’ve got to get it out’.”

  “In school I never ‘fit in’.” “In my home showing emotions was a sign of weakness.”

  “I got teased a lot.” “My parents divorced when I was five years old.”

  “I was never good enough.” “I only saw my dad on the weekends. He was a workaholic and was gone a lot.”