Turning on to Therapy for Teens
(The following is a brochure by the Stuttering Foundation of America, reprinted from Do You Stutter: A Guide For Teens, publication no. 21. - JAK)
TURNING ON TO THERAPY
By William H. Perkins, Ph.D.
WHY SHOULD YOU SEEK HELP?
There are at least two answers to this question. One is that you may have to improve your speech to get what you want. This can involve getting friends, getting grades, getting parts in plays, getting jobs, getting promotions, getting respect--the list is endless. Another more important answer is if your speech bothers you enough to want to do something about it. A version of the same answer is if you want to feel more accepting of yourself as a person. These together form the best reason for seeking help because you will be doing it for yourself.
CAN THERAPY DO ANYTHING FOR YOU SELF-HELP CAN'T?
Self-help has a big plus. One is that even if you're working alone, the fact that you are trying to help yourself shows your determination to not let stuttering run your life. If you bring that much determination to therapy, then your chances of success are VASTLY BETTER than if you go to therapy hoping that the clinician will do something to you or for you that will make life easier.
What therapy can do is to help you to help yourself. A clinician can give you enough distance from your problems to get things into focus. No matter how determined you are to improve, it will be unnecessarily frustrating and slow if you don't know how to go about helping yourself. The Speech Foundation has an excellent self-help book, but it can't demonstrate some of the skills that will be useful to you.
WHEN SHOULD YOU SEEK HELP?
The longer you wait to start, the greater the pressure you will feel to improve your speech. As big as those pressures may seem to you now, they'll seem even bigger the closer you get to job hunting or college. Don't wait until your last semester to start. Therapy is not an overnight business. It takes time, especially for progress that will stay with you. Although you can improve in a matter of weeks, if not days, improvement can evaporate just as quickly as you learned it. All you'll have left is fog if you don't practice frequently and put what you've learned to the test on the tough words and sounds, to say nothing of the tough situations you've tried to avoid. Give yourself years, but at the very least months, if you expect therapy to work.
HOW DO YOU COPE WITH AUNT BUFFIE'S AD?
The Aunt Buffies of the world are concerned and are trying to help. If your Aunt Buffie thinks she's found help for you, remember that she's probably on your side, but also remember that she's not likely to know much about stuttering. So thank her for being interested and tell her you'll check it out. Then you are free to investigate her lead as thoroughly as you can, or want to. Who knows, she may have done you a favor. Then again maybe she unearthed a quack.
CAN THERAPY CURE STUTTERING?
No one has found a cure for stuttering. If you hear of anyone who claims a cure, steer clear. This does not mean that some do not improve so much that they think of themselves as cured. When that happens, though, it's the exception, not the rule. If you are determined to cope with stuttering, you can improve your speech and you can improve how you feel.
CAN YOU BELIEVE CLAIMS OF OVERNIGHT SUCCESS?
No. Probably not, at least as far as giving you answers to whether you'll get the help you're looking for. The problem is in knowing what the claims mean. Does 98 percent success mean cure, fluency improved, feel better, or what? Many therapists could claim 100 percent success if every little improvement in fluency meant success. But that improvement would be so small as to have no meaning.
Good therapists don't make such claims. If a clinician hesitates to let you talk to anyone they've seen, or observe their therapy, or steer you to just certain former clients, or use testimonials from satisfied clients, or show a slick commercial example of their success, you should be cautious. They may advertise, but the better they are, the more discrete their advertising is likely to be. Good clinicians have nothing to hide. They're open for inspection.
DID YOU TRY THERAPY AND IT DIDN'T WORK?
If you've had therapy before and it didn't help, you're probably convinced it won't help. Worse, you may be feeling guilty because you think it's your fault that therapy didn't work. Maybe you're also scared you'll never outgrow it. You're probably right. If you're waiting and hoping it will eventually go away, the risk is that you're waiting in vain. (This of course does not apply to young children).
Don't despair. There is hope. For one thing, the clinician you had may not have specialized in stuttering. Many therapists don't know enough about it to be of much help, but there are specialists available. Read on.
The fact is that many who are helped most were sure there was no hope. If you have doubts, but still are willing to try, talk to people who have been through different therapy programs. Good clinicians can put you in touch with most of the people they've seen. See for yourself how their speech sounds, as well as how they feel about it and themselves. Find out how much help they feel they got. Their outcome won't guarantee your outcome, but they will give you a clue as to what to expect.
ARE YOU AFRAID TO GIVE THERAPY YOUR BEST EFFORT?
Nothing is quite so frightening as having to confront a moment of truth. What's scary about giving your best effort is the prospect that it might not be good enough. You might fail. If that's as far as you let yourself think, if you only look ahead as far as the possibility of failure, then fear will paralyze you. Try going beyond the failure, though, and see what happens. Let yourself think about failure in its grossest form. Turn it over in your mind. Play with it. Make it as bad as you can make it, then play each failure scenario out as far as you can take it. When you put failure in perspective, it doesn't make it pleasant but is does make it bearable. Most important, it makes it possible to give your best effort, and increases the chance of that effort succeeding.
IS 30 MINUTES A WEEK ENOUGH?
In the best of all possible worlds, no. Especially if you are just beginning therapy. Until you've made substantial progress, 30 minutes a week, even an hour a week, is like going to the movies and seeing nothing but previews. Momentum helps and it's tough to get it even with a couple of hours a week. Still, if you can only get an hour or so a week, progress will be slow but it is possible. Later on, when you know what you're about and are moving out on your own, brief weekly sessions can be particularly useful.
HOW DO YOU FIND HELP?
Before you go shopping for therapy, work out a shopping list. Do some reading about stuttering and the various therapies that have been developed for it. The Speech Foundation is a non-profit organization that specializes in help for people who stutter. They have publications containing the information you need for your shopping list.
HOW DO YOU FIND A THERAPIST YOU'LL LIKE?
Therapists help people who stutter several different ways. No single therapy or therapist is right for everyone. Finding the right therapist who can give you the help you want as well as the help you need is as difficult as finding the right girl friend or boy friend. Don't despair, though, it is possible.
The Speech Foundation can steer you to specialized help, but you'll have to decide if the therapist is for you. The only way you'll find out is to give whoever it is a try. First impressions aren't always right, but if you have strong objections, this therapist may just be wrong for you. If you've done your homework and prepared your shopping list (see "How do you find help?") you'll probably have a number of questions you'll want to discuss in those first sessions.
Finding the right clinician to help you isn't like finding a mechanic for your car or a surgeon for your appendix. Skill and knowledge alone aren't enough. Until you find a therapist who is both skilled and really cares about you, keep shopping.
