commentr/StutterMay 2, 2025

Content

Secondaries are a temporary distraction that work to trick you into initiate speech. Stuttering is an approach avoidance conflict so the secondary helps you initiate your sentence because it provided the distraction to get you past the initiation of the sentence. That is, until that novelty trick doesn’t work anymore. Then a new secondary result is added to help trick yourself into talking. The secondaries become more noticeable and get more elaborate. The only way to break the cycle is to talk talk talk in private, without concerns for stuttering or secondaries. I could be wrong but tallying secondaries brings more attention to them and could be counter productive. Tallying the number of sentences you say IGNORING IF THEY ARE STUTTERED ON OR NOT gives you motivation to keep talking whether you stutter or not. Set a goal, read aloud talk to the dog what have you for a set amount of time daily. Just talking and FINISHING sentences stuttering or not takes avoidance out of the equation.. You learn to, if nothing else, “stutter fluently,” with much less or no tension. Finish those sentences and celebrate those you stuttered or had secondaries on and still kept on. And when you do initiate sentences and you feel a block you can picture punching through that wall or bouncing over it. It’s a visualization techniques that helps some people. In behavioral psychology there is a technique called “desensitization ” where people confront their fears and gradually acclimate themselves until they are comfortable being with the fear. Eventually if they are flooded with lots of time facing the fear it desensitizes them to the fear. For example a person with a fear of flying might be shown movies on VR of getting on the plane, take off, flying, turbulence, and landing- for 3 minutes, then 5, and so on. That can be practiced over and over until they can VR that simulation for hours or more without anxiety. Eventually they take a short first flight. Talking A LOT without stopping can desensitize to stuttering and secondaries. Allowing yourself to stutter without trying not to stutter takes avoidance out of the avoidance-initiation conflict core of stuttering.

Themes

Coping & AdvocacySpeech & StutteringEmotional Experience

Subthemes

Voluntary Stuttering & ExposureLoss of ControlMindfulness & BreathingHelplessness & Agency