Stuttering, subjectivity and traumatization

STUTTERING, SUBJECTIVITY and TRAUMATIZATION

Silvia Friedman

PhD in Social Psychology

Speech and Hearing Therapist

Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Trauma

Natural stuttering – a path to traumatization

Suffered stuttering

Therapy

Bibliographic references

About the author

Abstract

This article will address: 1- What is understood by trauma; 2- Stuttering as a natural phenomenon present in speech of all speakers and how, based on communication relationships surrounding natural stuttering, a traumatization process is constituted; 3- Traumatization: the characteristics of stuttering as suffering in speech 4- The bases for a therapeutic process that understands stuttering as a traumatic response.

Keywords: Stuttering, Trauma, Therapy

Introduction

My interest in understanding stuttering began during my undergraduate course in Speech Therapy, which I completed in 1974. At the time, stuttering was presented as a problem about whose nature there were doubts. It was not clear whether it was an organic or emotional disorder, or perhaps a combination of both. The training I received to treat it was organic in nature: oral motor exercises to eliminate or minimize the tense motor manifestations that characterize stuttered speech.

After becoming a speech therapist, I began to treat people who complained of stuttering based on the training I had received. The results, however, were not satisfactory. Although they used the techniques proposed to avoid stuttering, such as softening articulation, speaking slowly, breathing before speaking, pausing speech for a few seconds when they anticipated stuttering, people continued to report suffering due to lack of freedom and insecurity when speaking, for fear that others would see them as incompetent, incapable, not knowing what they were saying.

On this path, which I followed for 10 years, two aspects intrigued me: 1- The fact that people sensed where they would stutter, whether it was a word or a phoneme, given that speech is an automatic and spontaneous action, that is, we know how to speak, but we don’t know how we do it. 2- The fact that all the stutterers I treated reported not having any stuttering at all when, for example, they spoke to themselves, to very young children, to their boyfriend/girlfriend, to a pet, that is, in situations in which they felt completely comfortable