I used to be a very severe stutterer. If I spoke with a stranger for 2 minutes, this person would clearly notice that I have a speech problem.

One of my best friends used to be a PWS too. He became a PWSS thanks to the Lovett Method more or less at the same time as I did. But he was a covert stutterer. I didn’t know about this until he told me. Almost nobody knew it. And that makes a HUGE difference.

Hi Adam, and Merry Christmas by the way! And congratulations for having had a bad incident in 5 weeks! You can consider yourself a PWSS, otherwise you wouldn’t have achieved this.

About your question, what I would do in your case would be to speak slowly, that’s for sure, and like a King (short bursts, pauses, etc). Be the one who makes questions and listens, not the one who replies and has all the pressure. Be the listener. If the other person replies to you with another question, reply firstly with a “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know” (nodding your head at the same time), and then say what you have to say. I don’t know if you get my point…

Hand gestures help me a lot, it keeps me distracted. Be expressive, play with your voice (modulation / hold your tone).

These are some of the Crutches that I would use. But the most important thing is, as you know, to be a Speech Cop!

I hope this helps 🙂

Hi Charlotte,
Thanks for your compliments. Of course you can get there too, no doubt about that!!
The next meeting will be in 2 weeks (there won’t be any meeting next Saturday, the 26th, we’re going ti take a break due to the holidays).
Would you like to have a free Q&A session with me (or any other coach) and ask me any questions yiu might have about the program, etc.?

Hi Charlotte! Welcome to WSSA. My name is Javier, and I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches here. Just like you, I began stuttering when I was around 4 or 5, and over the years, my stuttering became reaaaaally severe. Here’s my Success Story, in case you want to take a look at it: https://speechanxietyanonymous.org/pwss/javier-madrid-spain/

And in this video you can see how I used to stutter the first time I met Lee, and how it improved until I became a PWSS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMnX2hvwsx4&ab_channel=LeeLovett

It is great to see that your speech is already improving. Great job! Keep working on it and you’ll stop stuttering sooner or later. It is all a matter of discipline, consistency and determination. It took me 8 months to stop stuttering. But I’ve coached people who did it in 5 weeks (that is, not to have any bad incidents in at least 4 weeks; so after our second coaching session, he stopped appearing speech dsisabled!!).

The video courses are a great complement to the book. Having somebody (Lee) explain the book to you really helps. There is also a lot of useful information in the blogs (in the “Community section”) and of course, watching videos of coaching sessions is pretty much like being coached. You can search the videos that suit you best using the filters.

And just like Gábor said, the weekly meetings (they start at 9am NY time, which should be 14:00h in the UK) are incredibly motivating: hearing PWSS speak, share their stories, how they stopped stuttering, it really helps. And you also learn a lot. Hope to see you this weekend. The Zoom invitation details are given in the Community –> Speech Club Section, at the bottom of the page: https://worldstopstuttering.org/speech-club/

We all look forward to hearing about your progress with your speech!

Hi Gordon!
You gave a great speech this last Saturday in the SAM meeting, by the way.

About your question, I stopped stuttering something like 2 years ago. Every day, or almost every day, I do self-hypnosis in the morning, and sometimes at night too. As you might know, you might don’t need to focus all your affirmations to your speech, you can try to improve other aspects of yourself, that’s fine.

I try to read aloud a bit every day, I actually enjoy it, and I believe it still helps me continue improving my speech.

And of course, I use the Crutches when I need to. Speaking in short bursts, like a King, is always recommendable, as it will elevate virtually everyone’s speech.

So, in conclussion, I think it can be a good idea what you said: “I was thinking that I would do the full two-hour routine for another 3 months, to really ‘solidify’ the new neural pathways, and then taper back to 30 minutes of reading and one hypnosis session per day.”

In the end, we need to be our own coach, watch our way of speaking, and figure out ways to continue improving. Have you read the blog I posted here, some time ago?:

How To Become Your Own Speech Coach

I don’t think I’ve ever stuttered on a word (or letter/syllable) that I haven’t feared.
And even if that happens, you can detect it. You feel the anxiety triggering. Just like Gábor said, as soon as you see that you’re beginning to re-re-repeat or get stuck on a word, you can ALWAYS stop doing that (this means, to simply stop, to shut your mouth and stop tensing your muscles, jaw, neck, etc), to take a 1 or 2 second pause, and then use a Crutch.
I’ve done it a million times, and so have all the people who have posted a Success Story.

Hi Khaled,
for middle words the best Crutches are Crutches 7 to 12. But of course, you can say that you had a “ong” day and nobody will notice what you did there.

But, as I said, for those cases I prefer to, for example, link all my words and do it a bit more slowly than I usually do. If I don’t leave any spaces between words, there is no space for stuttering to jump in, so it is impossible to stutter, as long as we don’t allow ourselves to hesitate. So you would say someting like: “IHaveJustHadALongDay.” If you pay attention, that’s how everybody speaks actually. They don’t say “I. Have. Just. Had. A. Long. Day.” This sound very robotic, don’t you think. It’s much easier to understand if you watch one of my coaching sessions (or of any of the other coaches, of course). In the video section, you can use the filters to search for the videos that work on this Crutch (Crutch nº 10).

Hope this helps 🙂

you’re welcome!