Time For Change

Dear All

It's time for a change. As you will have seen, I haven't been posting for some months here - mainly because I have switched over to the Facebook group "Stuttering as a mindbody disorder". Though the Blogger medium is great for so many purposes and has served me so well in the past, it is not as flexible and interactive as a Facebook group.

You may also have noted that I have adjusted my view of stuttering. The Passive Airflow Technique is probably the best fluency technique available. It has changed my life positively and I will always be grateful to Dr Martin Schwartz who developed the technique. It continues to play a major part in my life and my view of stuttering; but I have supplemented this with the insights of Dr John Sarno, MD, the "mindbody" pioneer, whose work is, in my opinion, crucial for people who stutter.

To make a long story short - I still believe that "stuttering" (the speech repetitions and prolongations) results from a tension-related "freezing" / "locking" of the vocal-cord muscles. But where does this tension come from? From the day-to-day tensions and stress of life? That's what I believed in the past, and stress remains a source of tension; but a much bigger source of tension, I now believe, is the subconscious mind. People who stutter suffer from TMS - The Mindbody Syndrome. It is this syndrome which generates most of the tension affecting the speaking system.

For more information on TMS and how it impacts fluency, and how to deal with it, feel free to join the "Stuttering as a mindbody disorder" Facebook group which has replaced this blog. I hope to see you there!