My EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) journey continues with the addition of some standard speech therapy techniques. I found using voluntary stuttering has helped to keep my EMDR work on track. Also helpful and truly challenging has been my attempt to remove all forms of speech avoidance behaviors. I started this EMDR work over three years ago with the dream of improved fluency. Strangely, I have recently thought my speech might be improving too quickly. I currently see my stuttering as a window to the past where I can observe how my early speech developed. My journey feels of such great consequence that I don't want to miss any important details by traveling too quickly. I have explored memories on which my early speech and, most likely, even my earlier preverbal communication was built. Like the trunk of an old tree, my unconscious mind has carefully stored important information from long ago. As a multitude of branches will grow from a single tree trunk, I built a variety of speech behaviors from a fearful foundation.
Before starting EMDR, some of my early childhood memories were only linked unconsciously to my speech. I now sometimes feel a conscious connection to these memories when I speak. To better illustrate this idea, I want to share a newly explored childhood memory with seemingly little to do with either fear or my speech. Although this memory feels a bit embarrassing, most of my important activities at age two or three might seem a little awkward when viewed from an adult perspective.
At work, I have a large water cup on a high shelf. About twice a day while I was walking to the cooler to refill it I noticed something a little odd. As I walked, I would also very quickly check my pants zipper. I thought that with the use of EMDR I might discover what was triggering this action. Using refilling my water cup as an EMDR target and my sense of exploration, I looked to see how this behavior might be triggered. In this enjoyable EMDR session a very clear and powerful memory quickly came into focus. I am standing at a door and reaching up with both hands to turn a doorknob. As I start to run through the open door, I hear a voice from behind and above me reminding me to check my zipper. I place this memory at age two or three because of my having to reach up with both hands to open the door.
I now understand why walking to the water cooler is connecting to my early childhood experience. I walk to a shelf (a door in my early memory), stop, look up, reach up, and, grasping with one hand (two hands), pick up my water cup (turn a doorknob). I then start walking (running). A group of motions only somewhat similar to motions of my early memory are triggering exactly the same physical response as they did fifty years ago. My childhood adventure, I feel, was stored principally as a series of body motions in my unconscious mind. So, when a series of adult motions just happens to mimic my youthful activity, I still need to complete the drama by checking my zipper.
When I was only two or three feet tall, like most of us, there were many activities I did while looking up. Asking questions, opening doors or answering the telephone are just a few of the multitude of actives requiring looking up. When my EMDR work has targeted my very early speech development, I have found my stuttering was linked unconsciously to some simple physical motions.
This is an example what I knew about my stuttering before I had worked with EMDR:
1. I look up, see Tom, and want to say, "Hi Tom." (I know I stuttered the last several times I have tried to say his name.)
2. I am forced to talk very loudly to be heard. (I know I stutter more in noisy environments.)
3. Tom is standing with several people I don't know. (I know I stutter more when talking around people I don't know.)
4. I say, "T, T, T, T�" and feel helpless and embarrassed.
I now see how my stuttering is triggered when a series of both conscious and unconscious memories are linked. This is a more complete picture of how I feel my speech works:
1. I look up, see Tom, and want to say, "Hi Tom." (I feel energy linked to stuttering when I move my head back)
2. I am forced to talk very loudly to be heard (Certain noisy environments are linked unconsciously to my witnessing some emotional events when I was very young.)
3. Tom is standing with several people I don't know (I have processed through several embarrassing childhood memories relating to groups of people.)
4. I move my tongue to the roof of my mouth to say Tom. (My unconscious links this small motion to fear.)
5. I start to speak. (As I hear the sound of my own voice, a fear/freeze response is triggered unconsciously)
6. I say, "T, T, T, T�" (I now feel empowered as I explore my stuttering and I feel little embarrassment, fear or struggle.)
In a recent EMDR session I was powerfully thrust back in time, most likely to before age three. The memory that first came to mind was my crying in fear and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. It felt like I was lying on my back crying and shivering from the cold. I found when I moved my head back my crying would stop and it felt as if I was just giving up. I had an overwhelming sense of being unable to help myself. This was a very emotionally distressing EMDR session but from it, I gained the most significant insights about my stuttering so far.
The first thing to surface right after this EMDR session was an old feeling, "I can't help myself; it doesn't matter what I do." A second very powerful memory was my unconscious mind became fearful of the sound of my own voice when I was very young. This idea of me being fearful of my own voice has hit me very hard. When going to sleep for several nights, I would shake at just the thought of being fearful of my voice. For the last several years I have been exploring my early fears of stuttering. Now by reframing this idea of a link between fear and my speech, I think I now see how my stuttering developed. When I was an infant, the sound of my own crying was linked to an early fearful trauma. As my speech developed it also became linked to my fearful crying. When I heard sounds my unconscious mind found frightening, my stuttering was triggered. My speech locked for an instant until my conscious mind heard the speech error and restarted the word. Auditory feedback was causing my unconscious fear/freeze response to switch on repeatedly. The fear/freeze response is a natural hardwired reaction to fear and is normally present in all people, as well as many species of animals.
As with most young children who stutter, I was consciously unaware of my stuttering as my early speech developed. In addition, unknown to my conscious mind was a powerful underlying fear linked to hearing the sound of my voice. As my unconscious triggered my stuttering, I started to layer new fears over this core fear of hearing my voice. When this fear network grew I became aware of some stuttering links, but the earliest links were deeply protected from any conscious access.
Speech is a series of many very precisely timed motions. When I place my tongue on the roof of my mouth in combination the other motions to say "T," a block or stutter may be triggered. These links to simple motion work on an unconscious level without any conscious awareness. A fear/freeze response is triggered when connections are linked unconsciously to my early fearful crying. This fear/freeze response is activated with each individual letter repetition (T, T, T, T�). This repeated freeze on the first sound of a word is, of course, well known as stuttering.
I try to stay in the moment when stuttering. I see this as my attempt to connect with my stuttering as it occurs. My work with EMDR, I feel, has helped me to explore this conscious/unconscious connection. To connect and stay in the moment is also my goal with voluntary stuttering. It feels important I voluntarily stutter on words I randomly select. I will work with the same word for several cycles. It is like a game: I pick a word to stutter on and I stutter until I run out of breath. My stuttering practice migrates into powerful involuntary body motions. When I run out of breath, my head repeatedly jerks down. This is followed by a long sigh. A strong emotional shift starts when I run out of breath. This shift intensifies as my head jerking shifts into a sigh. I feel early infant crying is the link to my head/neck motion. Energy is released when I move through this exercise. It feels like I have cried to the point of being completely physically exhausted and just gave up. This practice often improves my speech for several hours and sometimes even lasts all day. I have found my voluntary stuttering practice acts as a window to my unconscious memory network. With the more focused EMDR work I can then explore how the many parts of this network link together.
I now always say, "Hello," when answering the telephone instead of using word substitution. Much more than other types of speech, answering the telephone seems very closely linked to my early communication fear. Both the physical motion of answering the telephone and the sound of the telephone ringing are closely linked to my fear of hearing my voice. Answering the telephone is unlike other form of speech because of its built in repetition. A familiar sound is triggered when a call is received (years ago it was always a bell). The motion of picking up the receiver is repeated. Saying hello is repeated each time a call is received.
I discovered a series of unconscious links to the telephone before I found these earliest ones. Similar to how my early crying stopped when I gave up asking for help, the sound of the telephone stops when the receiver is picked up. Just as my own motion as an infant stopped when I gave up calling for help, I walk to the telephone, stop, pick up the receiver and my speech blocks. As I try to answer, "Hello," my speech locks up because of these early links combined many others built over my lifetime. My mind is trying to protect me from harm with this very maladaptive application of the fear/freeze response. Although these early links currently feel very sensible, I think they would have seemed unbelievable before I started this EMDR work.
I now see the general relationship between stuttering and blocking to be fairly simple. My stuttering was originally triggered when I heard the sound of my own voice. When I start to speak an auditory signal is sent to both the conscious and unconscious areas of my brain. This signal is processed first by my unconscious and will sometimes cause a fear/freeze response. This response is so fast because it bypasses my higher brain functions. An auditory trigger causes the repeating nature of stuttering, with mixed signals sent from both my unconscious and the slower conscious mind. With a silent speech block, though, the auditory trigger is absent, so the rapidly repeating freeze action of stuttering is omitted. I see both stuttering and speech blocking as a powerful struggle between the conscious and unconscious the areas of my mind.
My crying to the point of physical exhaustion is a powerful memory. When I first became aware of my stuttering, I think I was feeling a small amount of this energy surfacing whenever I stuttered or blocked. This powerful energy would seem to just appear and I was consciously unaware of its source. My stuttering now helps me explore new links to this energy. When I feel this energy now, I work to slowly move through it. I feel this exploration of stuttering energy can even help to dissolve the links causing my stuttering.
We are all so different, with everyone having a unique speech pattern; but it also seems possible that an unconscious fear of one's own voice could be a commonality. If people who stutter have this common fear, it does not mean we are all the same. It would help to explain why people who stutter have some things in common though. Stuttering is often reduced with DAF (Delayed Auditory Feedback), singing, choral reading, acting, or any technique that changes the sound of your voice. Many effective speech therapies involve changing one's basic speech pattern. An unconscious fear of my voice is what I now see at the center of a lifetime of stuttering.
Parts of this puzzle I feel are truly taking shape, but there is still much more to be discovered. Having gone back in time exploring my childhood, I now have a better understanding who I am today. After first starting my EMDR work I wrote, "It felt like I was losing part of who I am, a very scared little boy." My relationship to my childhood is now more complete with the recovery of some important emotional memories. I do not feel like I have lost any part of what makes me who I am. With a greater communication with my unconscious, my speech does feels very different. Stuttering is no longer the fearful demon to be avoided whenever possible.
Dale Sander
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