Counseling

Counseling Objectives

Counseling is an important part of stuttering therapy in that it addresses many of the aftereffects of stuttering and the factors that contribute to its persistence. A skilled clinician leads his or her client through a process of self-discovery to uncover and change many of the underlying feelings, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs about their stuttering. This complement to speech therapy leads to the best resolution to the problem. Some of the objectives of therapeutic counseling are presented below.

Taking Speaking Risks - Encouraging a client to move outside his or her comfort zone to experiment using the speech targets in new and difficult speaking situations is a key to maximizing progress in therapy.
Build Awareness, Understanding and Skills to Better Manage Emotions - To be able to overcome the powerful effects of emotions, clients need to examine them more closely, understand how they work, and what they signify to be able to manage them most effectively.
Revealing the Dirty Little Secret - Most people who stutter try to conceal their stuttering from others. This increases tension and diverts important resources from using speech targets. Finding ways to reveal stuttering to listeners puts the speaker "on top of" their stuttering, rather than facing the burden of having stuttering on top of them.
Improving Coping Skills - Many clients have not developed skills to effectively cope with their stuttering and emotions much beyond those of childhood. It remains an "area of vulnerability".Learning new ways of coping and being able to process feelings with adult skills serve to lessen the impact of stuttering behaviors.
Discovering Other Assets - It's easy to focus what's wrong and not attend to other personal assets. Taking an inventory from a broader perspective can be a healthy means of putting stuttering in its place.
Valuing Communication, Not Just Fluency - Many who stutter measure their success in communicating with the "fluency yardstick". Realizing that successful communication is not fluency-dependent can become an important foundation for change.
Cognitive Restructuring - Developing new vantage points from which to view stuttering can free clients to move to new levels of understanding and "unblock" their ability to change.
Sharing Troubles - Many adults keep their stuttering problems to themselves. Having someone to listen, understand and evaluate their situation may pave the way to developing a greater openness about stuttering with others.
Learning about Stuttering - The power of learning factual information, and dispelling myths or misinformation about stuttering improves coping ability and strengthens the foundation for acceptance of stuttering.
Exploring the Emotional History - Helping clients learn why they feel the way they do about their stuttering is an initial step in the healing process. It provides valuable information for the clinician in understanding the client's perspective and learning how to help them.
Understanding Feelings and Emotions about Stuttering - Learning that feelings and emotions reflect underlying beliefs helps demystify them and use emotions to one's advantage, rather than them controlling the client.

Approaches in working with clients to achieve these counseling objectives are presented in subsequent portions of this section of the website.