Hi Amine,
I agree that we have to work on expanding our comfort zones, step by step. Starting from situations in which we feel comfortable or in which the level of stress is maneagable, as the main goal is not to appear speech disabled. We want to communicate our message fluently.
I don’t know if you know about how my speech used to be before I met Lee, but although I was not a shut-down blocker, I was a really heavy blocker. The video in the homepage of WSSA can prove it.

All my life, in school, university, at work, etc., if I had to give a speech/presentation in front of the whole class, I would do it. I had to do it. I never wanted any preferential treatment due to my stutter. Even in university, where the classes were comprised of around 100 students, I would give my presentation, stuttering in almost every word. I always finished my presentations shaking, sweating, devastated, but I did it.

I had a friend in uni, in my same class, who was a covert stutterer (I’ve never heard him stutter; thanks to Lee he also became a PWSS). He did the opposite of what I did. He gave his speech/presentation in private, to his teacher only. This friend of mine admired me because I gave my speech in front of the whole class, and my mindset.

Now that I stopped stuttering and that I’ve learnt a few things about stuttering and speech anxiety, this is what I think about this:

If I had done what my friend did, and tried to hide it, and avoid appearing speech disabled through avoidance, most likely I wouldn’t have become such a severe stutterer. If I hadn’t put myself under so much pressure, I wouldn’t have created so many stutter memories. Maybe I would have been a covert stutterer, or a mild stutterer, and not one of Lee’s toughest cases.

So, about the people you mentioned that they have stopped stuttering this way, most likely they were mild cases, and when they exposed themselves to high pressured situations, most likely they focused so much on being expressive, and passionate, or playing a role, that they forgot about their stuttering fears. Some actors and singers have done it like this, for example.

Hi Adam,
we support all methods that stop stutterers stop stuttering. This is the ultimate goal. However, I and the other coaches and the PWS who come to us have personally tried several, and unfortunately none of them work. As far as we know, the Lovett Method and WSSA offer the only real solution to self curing.

With this said, the purpose of thi forums is to discuss and give advice about the Lovett Method.

There are plenty of other stuttering forums online where this type of discussion would be more appropriate.

I hope you understand it. Have a great day! 🙂

Hi Gábor. Thanks so much!
About your question, I don’t think it was Reddit, the forums/comunities were from a long time ago, maybe 15 years ago or so. I don’t know if Reddit existed back then, although you’re right, nowadays the Stuttering community on Reddit has a lot of depressing messages, and they offer no real solutions to stuttering.
All they preach is acceptance and to learn to live with it. That might work for some mild cases. As I said yesterday at the SAM meeting, I simply couldn’t do it. I’m so glad I found Lee Lovett and this method. It changed my whole life.

Hi again Adam,
thanks for the explanation, it has helped me understand your case a lot better.

About the auto-suggestions. I don’t know other ways to make it go faster, unfortunately. I’ve done both self-hypnosis and auto-suggestions. Both take their time. For example, with the self-hypnosis, it took me around 3 weeks to start feeling thee effects of these treatments. It takes around that time to feel the ones of the auto-suggestions. Some people take longer, some people don’t.
But as I said, I don’t know of any other faster procedures, unfortunately… So, keep on insisting. You’ll get to feel the benefits of these treatments. It’s just a matter of time.

Regarding the Crutches: as you might know, there are 2 groups of Crutches:

Crutches for First Feared Words, which are Crutches 1 to 8.

Crutches for middle words, or “speaking styles”. These are Crutches 7-12, or better said, 7-13. These are the ones I recommend to use all the time, as they will also improve your speaking style and make you a better speaker. I particularly try to use Crutches 10 (linkage) and 11 (sepaking like a King). I really like them.
So, especially on these ones, the idea is that when using a Crutch, we must pay as much attention as possible to the way we speak instead of the specific words. So, for example, if we are using word-linkage (#10), we must be very focused on making sure we leave no “spaces” between syllables and words. This is how most people speak anyway. See it for yourself. Nobody. Speaks. Like. This.

Now, about extreme pronunciation, I recommend you to watch Lesson 9 of the Crutch Mastery Series (https://worldstopstuttering.org/lessons/crutch-9/). Lee explains that Crutch in that video lesson. But, as a tip, I try to focus on the movements of my jaw when speaking, instead of the words. I try to pronounce every syllable. There are some very helpful videos of our coaching sessions in which we explain this Crutch, and others, of course. You can look at them going to the “Videos” section of this website, and then use the search filters to find them.

I hope you find all this helpful.

Hi Maria!
good question. My advice is to make sure you know them all. The more options you have, the better. In some situations, you’ll find some Crutches easier to use than others. But we all have our favorite ones.
I’m sure your coach has asked you to focus more on certain Crutches. so try to use those ones the most. But that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the rest of them.

Here are some ways to get to master all the Crutches:

1) Reading aloud is a great way to practice the Crutches and being passionate. One of the best ways to practice the Crutches is to use one Crutch per page, on as many words as possible.

2) When speaking, obviously. Give yourself “challenges”. Start with low-pressured situations. For example, speak with your parents, or siblings if you have them. And without telling them, challenge yourself to use, for example, Crutch 4 every now and then, on that conversation. So, I’m not asking you to say it on as many words as possible. I’m suggesting you to use it whenever you need it (obviously), and try to use it every now and then too, even if you don’t need to use it. Get used to it. See it as a practice exercise.

I used to give myself these kind of challenges. Example: “For the next 20 minutes I’m going to try to use C-1 (on a random word, every few sentences, so nobody will notice it).For the following 20 minutes, I’ll do the same, but this time with C-2.” And so on…

But of course, focus the most on the Crutches/speaking style that your coach has suggested you.

I hope I answered your question.

Hi Amine,
my name is Javier, I’m a PWSS and one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA. I think we’ve never spoken to each other before, but I’ve watched a few of your sessions with Lee.
I wasn’t a shut-down blocker, but I was a very severe stutterer though. There’s a video of the evolution of my speech in the homepage of WSSA. You just need to scroll down a bit and you’ll find it.

As I was saying, I wasn’t a shut-down blocker, but I was probably close to it. I’ve never had a day, or even an hour of fluency in my life, until I found Lee and WSSA.

And here’s what I’ve learnt from this program, and my own personal experiences. YOU are the only one worried about your speech. You. The rest of the people don’t care about your speech, of if you get stuck on a word or 2. They are not going to gossip about that bad incident with their friends or anything like that. They are not judges of how you speak. Even if you have a bad incident, they will forget about it in less than 30 seconds, I promise you that.
They have their own problems. They are no better than you. They have no power over you.

As a PWS, before I approached a stranger, or even a friend or a family member, my fears and inferiority complexes triggered. “I’m sure I’m going to stutter… what will they think about me… I’m going to embarrass myself”. Something like that was what was rambling in my head 24/7.
I had to change that mindset if I wanted to stop stuttering. I started focusing more on being loving, more friendly, passionate. It has been incredibly helpful.
Before I approached a stranger, I tried to focus on having a smile on my face, on being more expressive. It made speaking much easier. Now, for example, thanks to this new approach, most of the staff of some restaurants and bars I go to, they know me by my name, they greet me as if I was a close friend, and sometimes they have even invited me to a beer, which is nice too hahaha. I mean, this will help you not only with your speech, but with everything.

What I’m trying to say is that we need to change our mindset. There is no reason to fear speaking. There is no risk. Nobody is going to harm us. They are just people, minding their own business. When they talk to us, they are not expecting us to stutter. They don’t care. And there is no need to say what we have to say quickly because they are in a hurry. No! Actually, if we speak fast, there is a much higher risk of having a bad incident, and therefore make the person wait for us. But, if we spoke like Kings, for example, we will be understood much better, and we will be speaking fluently.

So, what we need to do is to work on this mindset. We must know that nobody speaks perfectly, and nobody will ever do that. But we must always give our best to try to improve as much as possible. That’s all that matters. That you/I/we are doing our best to try to improve as much as possible every day, to be passionate and loving.
We will have some better days than others, that’s true. But if we compare where is our speech now, and where it used to be 5 months ago, for example, we will see that it has improved a lot, and that it is going to keep on improving. And we should feel very proud of this accomplishment. Now we are able to speak fluently in situations that probanly some months ago we wouldn’t. And we should feel very proud and happy about this.

And if we have a bad incident, well, we have to try to learn from it (I should have stopped talking or forcing that word, took a pause and then start again using a Crutch), and keep on with our lives, smiling.

I know it’s easier to write it than to do it, but it can be done. It requires daily practice, determination and patience.

I hope you found this helpful, Amine, and that it answered your question. If not, please let us know.

Hi Doug!!
It’s great to have you back! You are a true inspiration for all of us!
And I fully agree with what you said in your intro: “We have enough to worry about. Speech doesn’t have to be one.”

In a few months of hard work we can change our lifes by getting rid of that problem, which has been the centre of our worries all our lives.

Hope to see you at the SAM meetings. It would be great to have you in any of my coaching sessions too, your comments and advice are always very helpful.