What to do with negative thoughts ?

[Amine]

Hi everyone,

After reading books and articles about the brain and negative / painful / intrusive thoughts, I feel that there are two schools of thought :
– one that advises us to “correct” them and replace them by more helpful thoughts, in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) we call that “cognitive restructuring”.
– the other is more based on mindfulness and tells us to recognize the thought, to label it as just a thought, to make room for it and disentangle from it (let it come and go on its own) and not arguing with it or it.

I tried the two when dealing with really negative / intrusive thoughts (that hadn’t anything to do with stuttering) and I found that the second type is WAY more helpful. But I find that it is in contradiction with Lee’s methods concerning rejecting and replacing stuttering thoughts.

What are your thoughts on that ?

Amine

[Prathusha Ravi]

Hi Amine,

Thanks for that interesting question. It is important, what you feed the most to your mind. I cannot ask a PWS to forget a bad incident (a stuttering memory) because he might have suffered a great deal with it in his past and maybe it is still haunting him. But what I can do is make him using the crutches which helps him in converting a potential bad incident into a fluent memory. The only way to forget bad incident is by building a pile of fluent memories and this is where “Mind Training” come into play. When you say “Everyday in every way my speech grows better and better”, maybe in the starting you will not even believe what you are saying but the more you say it, the more repetitive these affirmations impacts your mind. The most repeated thought becomes your dominant thought and your dominant thought becomes your reality. The mind training takes time to take effect, that’s why it is very important to use crutches to avoid any sort of disfluency during the treatment tenure. Please read my blog in mind training https://worldstopstuttering.org/2020/08/using-auto-suggestion-treatments-to-expand-your-horizons/

[Amine]

Hi Prathusha,

Thanks for the answer. I agree with what you said. But I was referring to thoughts that pop up in the mind when there is an expected feared situation for example. You know, that voice that tells you :”you will stutter in that situation” or “Oh that’s a difficult thing to say”, etc. As I said, there are two approaches regarding these negative thoughts and I am wondering what is the best one to apply. As I said the second approach was way more helpful when dealing with another kind of thoughts, but with stuttering… I don’t know yet.

[Prathusha Ravi]

Hi Amine,

I completely agree with you. Do you think fear is the cause or effect of stuttering ?? I see fear as the effect of stuttering because like you said “the thought of what if I stutter” stems from the pool of bad stuttering memories that the PWS has created in the past. But as the PWS uses the crutches despite having fear!! He will be able to achieve fluency because it is impossible to stutter while using a crutch that’s why it is very important to use the crutches even when the PWS doesn’t need one so that it becomes his second nature and pops up automatically under pressure situations. And once he is able to see himself speaking fluently using the crutches, the fear drops. This is how the fluent memories override the stuttering memories and with time these stuttering memories will fade away.

Please feel free to ask more probing questions as it helps us to understand the views better. I really appreciate your time

Thanks,
PR

[Amine]

I read your response twice because I found it very interesting. It makes sense.

I personally see the fear as both a cause and an effect of stuttering. If I stutter, I will fear next possible stuttering situation. And if I fear a situation, my brain will more likely be in a fight / flight response mode, so it will be more likely for me to hold back, plan my words and stutter.

About the crutches, for example the humming / singing / linking one that Lee advised me to practice, how is it possible to use it at work ? I stutter mainly when I have to explain something complicated or sometimes when I have to give a very specific answer or ask about a very specific thing, so I can go for days without having to stutter. It would be ideal to practice crutches at work, but it is difficult to use extreme ones (like humming / singing) in a serious environment like this.

[Prathusha Ravi]

Hi Amine,

I totally agree with your views and it has been very productive chatting with you.

The best example of humming or singing would be the videos of Artis from Norway, you can search for his videos in the WSSA video library. He had a severe stutter and the only crutch that helped him the most was singing and laughing. If you ask me do you have to sing permanently throughout your life ?? Definitely not, because your speech system will adjust to the crutch. If you look at Artis videos, initially was singing his speech but the more he practiced, the more he sounded natural. So, don’t worry!! The more you are going to hum through the words, the more your speech is going to sound natural. For that, you need to go through the phase called “practice” till it becomes your second nature. For now, don’t bother about what others might think of your speech while using the crutches because this is a temporary phase but worth the practice 🙂

Nice knowing you 🙂 do you attend SAM meetings ?? I would love to see you there.

Thanks,
PR

[Amine]

Talking with you have been very insightful too. Thank you ! This is a very important phrase : “don’t bother about what others might think of your speech while using the crutches”. I will try to keep that in mind.

As for the SAM meetings, I’ve attended 2 or 3 times, because I am usually busy on Saturday afternoons but I’ll attend more in the future.

Thank you very much for your advises 🙂

Amine

[Anonymous]

Hi Amine,

SOOO nice to have you! And thank you for the wonderful question. Prathusha has answered it perfectly.

I would add that fear does NOT cause stuttering, and as long as you believe that fear is a cause of stuttering, you will not cure it. The reason is that fear only disappears once we have stopped stuttering and proved to our brains that speaking does not require fear. The only reason that we fear speaking is because of negative stuttering memories. If we believe that fear equals stuttering, then every time we have a fear, we will think – oh well, I have fear, so I am going to stutter – then you will allow yourself to stutter. You will then never be fluent for long enough to form fluent memories and wash out all of the stuttering memories. In short, you will not be able to form a fluency habit and let go of the stuttering habit.

Also, many fluent people fear public speaking, yet none of them stutter? They just absolutely fear and loathe it. If fear caused stuttering, then fluent people would also stutter during public speaking.

I still had fears up to a year after I stopped stuttering, in fact, I had a fear randomly a couple of weeks ago in one of the SAM meetings. BUT, not ONCE did these fears cause me to stutter. Does this make sense? Let me know if you would like to have a quick Zoom meeting and we can chat about this. It is actually one of the most important beliefs that you need to let go of, so it is imperative that you understand and believe what we are telling you. What are your thoughts on this?

Hope to see you at the SAM meeting this Saturday!!!

[Amine]

Hi Leah,

Thank you so much for your answer. I am convinced ! And it makes sense. In fact, I am reading a book written by our well-known psychologist and yesterday I stumbled upon this sentence that confirms what you are saying. : “in 99,9 % of the time, our emotions do not control our behavior”. The fear just creates a tendency to act one way or another, but it doesn’t force us to do anything. The choice is still there. But it comes with practice. The next step for me is to focus all my attention on crutches when speaking. I’ll definitely let you know for the Zoom meeting, it is very kind of you 🙂

Amine

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