This is where the story gets really interesting. One day I was surfing around on the National Stuttering Association’s website when I spotted the book How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People by John C. Harrison. I ordered the book and when it arrived I immediately began devouring its contents. The first part of the book talked about specific techniques that people who stutter could use to be an effective public speaker. While this portion of the book was good, it was the second portion that was like breathing a breath of fresh air.
The second part included John’s feelings about stuttering which included an overall sense that if you are trying to solve a problem without making headway chances are that you are trying to solve the wrong problem. His book indicated that he felt many stuttering treatments are not inclusive enough to fully describe the full dynamics of what drives stuttering. Basically, that a paradigm shift in the way we view stuttering is needed.
In his book, John states:
“If stuttering were simply a problem with the mechanics of speech, we’d stutter all the time, even when we were alone. Rather, it seems to be an interactive system involving a number of different components, only one of which is physical. It is the way these components interact that creates a self-reinforcing system.”
John goes on to describe what he has termed The Stuttering Hexagon. The Hexagon is composed of six points that include: physical behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, intentions, and physiological responses. On the Hexagon every point is connected to every other point. Concerning all points being connected John states:
“This means that each element is influenced, either positively or negatively, by what’s happening at the other locations on the Stuttering Hexagon. In other words, your emotions will influence your behaviors, perceptions, beliefs, unconscious programs and physiological responses.”
For the remainder of the second part of the book Harrison explains each of the six points on the Hexagon in detail and how they interrelate with one another. If a person who stutters has previously been working on changing their debilitating beliefs and has been successful but still carries negative emotions from past childhood traumas or hurts those emotions will have a negative affect on the remaining points on the Hexagon and throw the entire system off leaving the person still vulnerable to stuttering. So each point must be effectively dealt with. He also contends that to make the stuttering disappear you can’t focus on solving it – you must focus on dissolving it. In other words, to remove the problem you must alter its structure.
John’s Stuttering Hexagon was the most accurate description of the mystery behind stuttering that I had read to date. And the fact that after 25 or 30 years of stuttering he was able to defeat it himself, gave me the final boost that I needed to know that I too, could overcome stuttering.
As excellent as John’s book was it was never intended to be a therapy program or provide techniques for becoming more fluent. So, at the end of the book I was left with the question, “How do I get all of the points on the Hexagon positively biased?” Little did I know that shortly I would discover the answer: Neuro-Semantics.
Throughout his book John recommends several other books, including Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. ’That book was my first introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Eventually this book led me to The User’s Manual for the Brain, which is a comprehensive manual covering the NLP Practitioner course and is written by Bob G. Bodenhamer, and L. Michael Hall, the co-founders of Neuro-Semantics (NS).
As I was reading the books on NLP I became very excited about the potential of these techniques being effective tools in getting the Stuttering Hexagon to be positively biased as it related to my inability to speak fluently. Practicing some of the techniques in Awaken the Giant Within proved to be mildly helpful. But I remained hopeful that this could ultimately be the mechanism that would throw me into speech stability. I felt that if I could just work with someone trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming that they might be able to walk me through the techniques that would prove most effective for people who stutter.
My opportunity presented itself when midway through The User’s Manual for the Brain the authors indicated a website address for Neuro-Semantics (www.neurosemantics.com). The next day I visited the sight and discovered that they provided private consultations. BINGO!!!!!! Because of my Christian beliefs I chose to email Bob Bodenhamer. I knew through reading his book that he held the same Christian values that I did so I felt an element of trust in contacting him. Later I discovered that L. Michael Hall, held the same beliefs also.
When I received an email back from Bob indicating his willingness to work with me I was ecstatic! He indicated that he indeed had limited experience with four or five clients who stuttered but had obtained successful outcome utilizing the skills of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics (NS). Bob also felt that he stood a real chance of helping me over the phone, which alleviated the necessity of me flying to North Carolina to meet with him. We set up the first phone consultation for the following Friday.
So the big question you may be asking is, “What are Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics (NS)?” NLP is a model that helps you take charge of your own thinking by developing effective strategies and representing your experiences in an effective manner. Neuro-Semantics incorporates higher level “meanings” into the structure of subjectivity. Our “states” involve the primary level neuro-linguistic thoughts-and-feelings in response to something out there in the world. That defines a Primary State. A Meta-State involves more. It involves our thoughts-feeling about our thoughts, emotions, states, memories, imaginations, concepts, and so on. It involves our meta-responses to previous responses. (Fearing the fear of stuttering).
Bob sums up one of the
