Great question! As you pointed out, how can CBT be helpful for such anticipation? I believe that many individuals with disorders/conditions (such as, OCD, PTSD, depression, panic or social anxiety disorders), often have issues because of anticipation. So, it's not 'just' a problem in stuttering. In CBT, this phenomenon belongs in the category: (anticipatory) **intrusive** thoughts / emotions / body sensations. For example, stuttering anticipation is an **intrusive** trigger, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is specialized to address such **intrusive** triggers. So, we can explain to the CBT therapist, that we do fight flight freeze responses in response to "anticipatory pressure in the throat" which is an **intrusive** sensation (or we just know that stuttering will happen - **intrusive** thought), and then (more) stuttering follows. The CBT therapist can then explain how we can (1) reduce such anticipatory intrusive thoughts or sensations, or (2) stop relying on such anticipation without specifically needing to reduce anticipation. I'd like to compare this with the activity of studying in a crowded bus. Many people would surely tell themselves an expectations: "I can't study right now, because of the noise in the bus". But, the fact is, that is we stop relying on such expectations (such as, "we can't do this", or "firstly, I need to wait out or reduce the noise in the bus"). Then we can more easily study. It's the same with stuttering, as long as if have the 'maladaptive' expectation: "I need to reduce anticipation first" or "I blame anticipation" or "I desire to wait out anticipation" or any other expectation - then we are essentially limiting our own speech performance, or we are creating our own stuttering disorder, or we are developing our own stutter triggers, or we are keep ourselves in this "intrusive trigger - overreliance"-loop