TRANSCRIPT OF A PRESENTATION, BY ALAN BADMINGTON, TO ...

As a person who stuttered, I built up a self-image of who I was. Anything
that challenged that image, I perceived as a threat to my well-being. A selfimage
that is too narrow and constrictive to accommodate our entire
personality, imprisons us. It forces us to curtail our activities so that we
may continue to act out of character. Persons who stutter avoid expanding
their comfort zones. Many continue to live their lives doing things with
which they feel comfortable. We cast ourselves in a diminished role and are
content to remain in the same old safe predictable world – maintaining the
status quo.
On the other hand, if we can broaden this self-image to accommodate the
different sides of ourselves, then we are able to play all these roles, and be
comfortable in doing so. The moment you are willing to give up your old
self-image, you will find that there are incredible opportunities for change.
Unless you change you will fight the new you because it does not fit into
how you see yourself.
In order to achieve this, you need to do certain things over and over until
these behaviours become familiar and you get used to seeing yourself in
these new roles. Only then will they become a welcome and acceptable
part of the ‘real’ you. Until permanent changes occur – through continual
expansion – the hexagon will remain vulnerable.
In his book, John Harrison says that he made his stuttering disappear long
before his actual blocking behaviours ceased. He did this by observing
what he was doing in a different light. He says, and I quote, “When I
stopped observing my problem through the narrow perspective of
stuttering; the stuttering per se was gone. That is, I stopped seeing the
behaviour as something called stuttering – and in its place was a handful of
other problems in a unique relationship that needed to be addressed. By
addressing these issues, individually, the actual physical blocking behaviours
slowly diminished and disappeared over time”.
If you do not do anything about your posture of helplessness; or your
reluctance to communicate your feelings; or your lack of self-assertiveness;