I Have a Voice

There is nothing else” or “I am at the bottom. There is nothing else below. I can’t go any further.” This may be visual (some kind of barrier or floor) or kinesthetic (a feeling of impenetrability or resistance). If this happens, suggest that this is to be expected, and that all they have to do is to imagine opening up whatever is blocking them in any way at all (they can be very creative here) and simply drop down another level. For example, one client reached the bottom and said, “I am standing on a two inch thick steel plate.” I invited the client to imagine taking a cutting torch and cutting through the steel plate and then drop on down through. That worked. Use your creativity to do whatever it takes to get down through and out the other side. It’s a case of asking your mind to find a way to “just do it” rather than agonize about how hard it is. As they let go of their resistance they will drop down through that and out the other side.

4. Confirm the emptiness and move down through to the “other side” of emptiness.

Just experience that “nothingness” or “void” for a moment. Good.

Now let that nothingness open up and imagine yourself dropping through and out the other side of the nothingness.

What are you experiencing when you come out the other side of the nothingness? What or whom do you see? What resources are you aware of?

Repeat this several times … to elicit further resource states.

When you drop down through to the level of nothingness or the level where there is no meaning and from there you go through that “nothingness” you become able to access resource states. If you keep going you arrive at a fifth position point of view. For instance, if you ask a PWS, “What is behind your belief that other people think you are stupid if you stutter?” and keep asking them, “And what is behind that?” and so on, you will eventually elicit their fifth position beliefs. Whichever metaphorical direction you travel in, you eventually arrive at your “higher” frames of mind. You could say that every problem brings with it its own resource for healing. This is true for any problem for any person.

5. Associate into your resource state (fifth position) and apply that resource state to each problem state.

Apply each resource state to each problem state.

And when you feel X (resource state) about Y (problem state), how does that transform things?

And when you even more fully feel X – what other transformations occur?

Validate and consolidate: just stay right here in this X resource, and as you experience it fully, what happens to the first problem state (step 1)?

6. Test.

Let’s see what now happens when you try – and I want you to really try – to get back the problem state that you started with.

When you try to do that, what happens? (There is a presupposition here that they cannot do this, at least to the same degree as before.)

Do you like this? Are you able to say Yes to validate the change?

Would you like to take this into your future – into all of your tomorrows and into all your relationships?

Figure 6.6: Dropping down through Conclusion

I am concluding with the Drop Down Through Pattern because it beautifully summarizes the ideas in this book. This pattern presupposes that blocking and stuttering are learned behaviors. The pattern elicits the unconscious meanings that keep the block in place. It then engages the mind in thinking in a different way, changing the PWS’s point of view, and thereby changing the meaning of their experience. It also uses the meta-stating pattern – applying a positive, life-enhancing resource – for reframing those negative frames ofmind which are triggered by all those old memories which hold the block in place long after it has ceased to provide a service to the PWS.

The ultimate goal of this pattern – as is the case with all the patterns in this book – is to lead the PWS to the point where they are no longer fixating on how they talk. Instead they are paying attention to the other person and engaging in mutually satisfying communication. The blocking and stuttering is no longer on their mind. When they reach that point, they have normal fluency.

Appendix A Pioneers John Harrison

I am not the first one to indicate that blocking has its roots in cognition (thinking). In the field of stuttering, John Harrison (1989, 2002) has provided a basic systems model describing six key variables or factors involved in stuttering. He calls this system, The Stuttering Hexagon (Figure A.1. See also Chapter 1):

Figure A.1: The Stuttering Hexagon

The six factors are: physiological responses, physical behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, and intentions. Harrison points out that in a system every element is influenced by the other elements, positively or negatively (Harrison 1989: vi).

Harrison has also noted numerous other systemic factors about the stuttering hexagon:

As a system, stuttering involves the entire person and is not just a speech problem.

Once operating as a system, the hexagon “has a life of its own” (1989: 3).

As a system, the stuttering system will develop default settings.

“A permanent change in your speech will happen only when you alter the various default settings around the Stuttering Hexagon.” (106)

Change a critical factor in the system, and the entire system changes.

Not everyone develops a blocking system. That emerges from a natural tendency for speech to stumble under stress. Harrison calls such stumbling in speech “bobulating”. Harrison describes it as “… kind of a relaxed, stumbly disfluency that you hear when people are