Summary of telephone self-help group conference call in which Catherine was guest speaker - May 2005.

Catherine Montgomery founded the American Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Professional Training in New York City. Their Integration Model combines physical speech management with changes on psychological and emotional levels. Most teens and adults attend a three-week intensive course to get the benefits of working directly with others during therapy.

How does the course help?

CM: People come here and say they want to be more fluent. I ask them: 'what will fluency do for you?' 'To say what I want to when I want to,' is the usual answer - in other words, freedom. This is the goal of therapy, to empower people to have that freedom whether they are fluent or not. One client said that the course changed his life. 'I can go out and say what I want, when I want.' He added: 'Oh yes, I also learned to manage my speech so I stutter less.'

What happens in therapy?

CM: We help people to change their relationship to their stuttering so that it doesn't rule their lives, and say: 'It is a part of me, it is a part of who I am.'

I say to people: 'stop the guilt'. Avoidance mechanisms are completely understandable. You've got genetics, neurological systems and physical mechanisms not working properly. These create the iceberg effect - all the stuff below the surface.

We talk about what stammering has done in a positive way, for example, provided different opportunities, made people work hard, or helped them to be more sensitive.

In the first week we do a lot of self-advertising. The first day of the intensive we're on the phone and say....hey, my name is ....[Catherine], and well, as you can hear, I stutter, so just hang on with me, and I have a question, ......

People realise: 'I can be pro-active here, I can say 'hey, give me a second'.' This is the most liberating thing they have encountered.

We do a lot of activities to understand and identify everything you can about your own stuttering. What's going on when you block on that letter and that sound? Where's your tongue, what's your throat feeling like? What is going on in your head, Then we work with the lips, and the tongue, the jaw to reduce tension levels so that you can pull out and ease yourself out of blocks, or prevent them from happening. It's more voice therapy than speech therapy.

We have a lot of sessions to talk about the mental and emotional parts of this. We continue to do surveys with families and friends. A lot of it is about opening up the lines of communication with just about everybody you know to talk about this thing and be out in the open and start to be healed, to say 'I don't deserve the shame.'

We list the characteristics of a good communicator. Then we discus what characteristics should have anything to do with speech fluency. We help our clients be comfortable communicators. People learn how to generate and manage more fluency if that is their choice. We follow up the intensive with a weekly support group and have some really great feedback. The bottom line: don't be afraid to stutter it's okay, you have ways out of it should you choose to do that, but no one here is saying you should be fluent.

Do you find that the effectiveness of therapy depends on whether the person is ready to explore all these feelings?

CM: I guess the answer is YES. We give them a detailed view of the course and ask them about themselves, so they know what they're buying into. I ask teens if they really want to be there. If not, I'll counsel the parents and say wait until he comes to you before he comes to us.

There have been clients that it doesn't click for, but it's a fairly rare occurrence these days.

From the Autumn 2005 edition of Speaking Out

See also:
New building, new approach - courses offered by City Lit in London which draw on Catherine Montgomery's approach.
Adult therapy and courses
Telephone self-help groups

Internet link: www.stutteringtreatment.org