Labeling and mislabeling – This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing their blocking as a behavior that they do sometimes, they attach a negative label to themselves such as “I’m a loser.” Such labeling leads to identifying with the behavior and that in turn tends to lock in the block. After all, if you believe yourself to be a loser then your life will be lived to prove that true.
Personalizing and blame – Is the PWS ever good at this! The PWS believes that they are the cause of their blocking and stuttering, which indicates that something is wrong with them as a person. Major problems may arise if the PWS’s level of self-esteem is based on their speech and not on their innate worth as a human being. They judge their performance in terms of whether or not they can please others by being fluent. Once the PWS learns that they are far more than their speech behavior, they are well on the way to fluency.
The way out of such cognitive distortions is to start thinking differently, and one way to do this is to consider the future in terms of what you want to have in it. The following section provides a systematic way of helping someone think positively about what they want. Overcoming resistance
Atough realization of change is that when you gain something you also lose something. People sometimes resist change when the fear of loss is stronger than the desire for gain. Even though the PWS is keen to let go of a limiting behavior and can imagine how life will be better thereafter, they may still not change because there are still unresolved issues which need to be addressed first. It is as if there are “parts” of them which have objections (see Exercise 5.2, step 7).
PWS may resist overcoming stuttering because of the secondary gain they derive from it. It might seem crazy that someone would hang on to a debilitating behavior just because of the pay-off they get from it, but they do. The secondary gain may be getting protection or getting attention – benefits relevant to their childhood which they are hesitant to let go of. Until the mental frames which hold the blocking and stuttering in place are made conscious, and satisfactory alternatives found, they will continue to influence someone’s behavior.
Imagining change as a magic wand which makes everything different could lead to uncritical and unrealistic expectations. When you think about your life, even when one big thing changed, many of the small things stayed pretty much the same. You still have to go shopping, pay the bills, put out the garbage. If the PWS suggests that, “Once I speak fluently everything will be wonderful”, tactfully point out that it may not be as clear cut as that. Speaking fluently puts them on the same basis as other people. No longer are they “disadvantaged”; they will lose their “special status”. There are no longer any excuses for under-performing; they will simply need to use their talents more. It’s a good idea to consider these losses and gains beforehand, so that they have more realistic expectations. Language and your concept of self
How do negative concepts of self become so ingrained and so powerful that they can literally determine how a person speaks? It is because they seem real to the person. The word or label comes to stand for a whole array of experience which has been ignored or forgotten. For example, the words “flawed” and “broken” take on an aura of truth which seems inevitable. So how does this happen?Language
Lives are dynamic, and experience can be perceived as a story or as a movie, possibly several movies at once. However, our language is far better suited to labeling static things: events, images, snapshots of our reality. Words tend to “fix” the world and our experience. Think about the words you use to describe a process or event which has been going on for some time: “my marriage”, “my job” and so on. Words become a kind of shorthand way of referring to much larger stories or ongoing processes. Many concepts are labeled as if they are things – “relationship”, “job” – when in fact they are ongoing processes – ways of relating, or getting things done. Unless you deliberately talk in terms of continuing change, most of the language you use refers to “what stays the same” in your mind. A similar thing happens in using adjectives to describe the qualities of something or someone. For example, describing them is “young” or “old” is imprecise and relative.
You use these verbal shortcuts all the time. They are neither good nor bad in themselves. If you didn’t use them you would find it difficult to communicate; every conversation would take forever. However, it is when your communication is not working, when you are stuck with a fixed description of your reality, and you want to change, that is when the language itself needs to be investigated.
It can be hard putting your experiences into words. Much easier to use ready-made word forms or clichés for getting across what you want to say. But, as with every well-used term or phrase, they soon lose their power to inform, because other people think they know what you mean when in fact they do not. It’s also probable that you think your description of yourself is accurate when in fact you are using imprecise tools. Everyday speech is usually inexact; it is “good enough” to the extent that the other person
