What If..

When a client fails to benefit from a therapy, what
happens then? Often the therapist and the client tend to blame each
other. But there is another position: what if the “condition” has been
totally misunderstood? And in the case of stammering, what if, stammering
has many sub-types: one responding to fluency shaping techniques and
others not?

Good therapist will listen to clients, learn from “negative”
feedback and offer better and diverse approaches to serve the clients. By
listening to dissatisfied clients, medical science has learned that
there are two kinds of Diabetes and three subtypes of Jaundice…By
listening and learning.

TISA interviewed Sanjib sometime back on the question of
“cure”. Not only Sanjib, there are others, who sought “cure” and failed
to find it.
They may have found some fluency- but not “cure”. Some did not improve
at all. Even if we leave the question of “cure” alone (Cure of what? one
must first identify the cause – not just the symptoms, to claim that)- Yes, even if we
leave the problematic question of “cure” alone, one must be open to and
acknowledge this phenomena: many pws have attended more than one course
at SCC, practiced for months (not just 15 days) and yet, the outcome is
VERY VERY different.

One way to respond will be to simply blame the clients. A better way
would be to rethink the entire approach. I think it is time to move on
from dogma, personality worship, “shoot the messenger” kind of knee jerk
responses. It is time to look at the evidence (the big picture) and
appreciate the people who share publicly what works, what does not. They
are shaping the Speech Science of tomorrow.

Anyway. TISA will be very happy to remove, Sanjib’s interview,
if SCC removes following misleading claim from their website: “Any
type of stammering can be cured in 15 days”. Mr Sinha, what do you say?
Can you ensure that?

May the 2014 bring in an era of respect for diversity, courage for our convictions and concern for overall evidence..

Peace!