Earlier this year [1997], we were approached by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programme Watchdog Healthcheck to see whether we could identify at short notice two volunteers for an all-expenses paid ten-day course at the Del Ferro Institute in Amsterdam. The BBC chose Christine Menzies and Bill Croney, and they were filmed by BBC camera crews before, during and after the course for a TV programme screened in May this year. The Del Ferro method is based on diaphragmatic breathing, and participants were told at the outset that stammering "is nothing in your brains. It just has to do with the training of the diaphragm. So you are going to push with your hands on the ribs so that the diaphragm will move fluently up, and it pushes the air out."

Before the course, Christine described how she was "feeling trapped within myself and not able to express how I was feeling." The TV programme followed her introduction to the method and the first day of the course. After just two and a half minutes the instructor had Christine saying her name, address and profession without stammering.

BSA member and office volunteer Lisa Boardman describes her reaction after viewing the programme: "As a viewer and stammerer, I wondered how and if the Del Ferro Method addressed the feelings which stammering arouses in people, and in particular, how a life-long stammerer might cope with a sudden 'miracle' transformation into a fluent speaker? Any improvement, in feelings of general well-being or through reduced anxiety whilst stammering, from attending a course such as this, could easily be recreated in any setting where stammerers come together to share feelings and ideas. But is this an integral part of the course? 'It's nothing in your brains ...' seems to imply otherwise.

Does the Del Ferro clinic really believe that stammering is a purely 'medical' phenomenon, as the BBC programme implied? If so, it is definitely up against some opposition. Carolyn Cheasman, a speech therapist from the City Lit in London, appeared on the programme with this to say: 'it is actually relatively simple to get people speaking fluently but the real problem is to help them stay speaking fluently after this intensive course is finished.'"

Christine responded well to the therapy and could relate to the ideas behind it. At the end of the watchdog report, Christine spoke with complete fluency in the presence of her partner Graham who, as the headline states, was pleased that she would 'allow others to hear her beautiful voice'.

In conversation with the Speaking Out editor, Christine said: "The Del Ferro method is not the 'instant cure' it was portrayed as by the BBC. I still have to work hard every day at maintaining my fluency. That said, it has made a tremendous difference to my life. It has given me the tool to speak, in a confident and relaxed way, to family, friends, work colleagues, strangers or on the phone - situations I sometimes shied away from. However, although it has helped me, this programme is definitely not for everyone. In my case, I think what helped me gain from it was the therapy I had at the Michael Palin Centre in London and at the City Lit, which taught me to face my stammer and to think positively. Had I not had this experience, I doubt whether I would have been in the right frame of mind to benefit from this particular type of approach."

From the Summer 1997 issue of Speaking Out

See also:
The Del Ferro Institute: Cautions from Holland
Is there a cure for stammering? - the BSA view

Del Ferro Institute website: www.xs4all.nl/~delferro/