The Vicious Cycle
One way of understanding how situations influence your stammering
is to consider how thoughts and feelings about speech and speaking
situations affect fluency. This is the vicious cycle of stammering.
The vicious cycle is not a new idea, but one that is well described
by Cognitive Therapy, which helps us to understand the role of thoughts
and beliefs in making situations better or worse for ourselves.
It is quite a simple idea but it deals with a very complicated subject:
the psychology of emotions!
Consider this scenario - the phone rings...
First thought:
Response:
Result:
Then: |
"Oh no, I know
I'll stammer, I always do on the phone - but I should
answer it - it'll be a disaster."
Panic; heart rate increases, palms start sweating and tension
rises.
You don't answer ("I'll pretend I was out -
oh, it's stopped ringing - thank goodness").
"I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. It's no
good, what an idiot, why can't I do anything right?" |
Sound familiar? This diagram illustrates how the vicious cycle
seems to work:
Past experience
Most people are familiar with the idea of predicting problems
based on past experience.
Situations
Situations can trigger a vicious cycle.
Negative thoughts
Negative thoughts flash through our minds (eg: "I'll
stammer", "There's nothing I can do", "I won't
be able to speak"). These thoughts may happen so quickly that
you hardly even notice them but just feel bad. Underlying these
powerful and convincing thoughts are the strongest of beliefs about
the consequences of stammering (e.g. "They'll laugh at
me", "They'll think I am stupid", "They
won't listen or try to understand").
Emotions
These thoughts are made worse by the natural reactions that go
with them. It's normal to have an emotional response to the
situation - you might feel nervous, ashamed, embarrassed or
simply fed up!
Physical reactions
Getting hot or sweaty, heart pounding, butterflies in your stomach
are also natural - the body responds to strong emotions. The
problem is they tend to make things worse by making you even more
self-conscious.
Knock-on effects
You may avoid a situation entirely, change words, not speak or
say as little as possible. Or when you do speak you may be more
likely to stammer because of the increased tension.
The cycle is completed
This behaviour can then strengthen the thoughts and beliefs ("I
knew I couldn't do it"). And the next time the phone rings,
you queue up to buy a train ticket or you prepare to give a presentation
in class, the vicious cycle may be triggered again.
Alternatively sometimes you don't stammer and, being human,
you put that down to luck and still assume the worst next time.
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