Stuttering: A Gift Rejected
(One Man's Victory Over Speech Blocks),
by M. G. Bradley.

Stuttering a gift. Well, my stuttering is certainly and unwanted gift so I'll just take it back to customer services and get a refund. If it were only that easy.

This book by American M G Bradley is about his experience as a stutterer and how whilst in retirement he began research and learned about thought projection, his solution to stuttering.

What is this gift rejected? He states that stuttering is a gift given to you probably between the ages of birth and three. It is a gift that you do not remember, and is now in your subconscious.

His definition of a gift is something given to you intentionally or not, and whether you want it or not. The gift of stuttering comes to you as a result of a traumatic event that interrupts your thinking process. His traumatic event centred around threatening behaviour by his father.

Following school-days which produced problems we have all encountered he eventually followed a career in sales lasting forty years. On the road doing external sales in a continually changing environment he had less time to think of his stutter and was always well prepared for sales meetings. It was in the latter part of his career when spending more time in the office that he had to modify his stuttering control techniques that he states are based on thought projection.

This small 32-page booklet proved to be hard to follow and understand and appears to be a bit disjointed in the presentation of the subject. The author is writing about his perception of his stutter and what he perceives as the solution to his stutter. The only reference to research is that he studied people who spoke well. There is no reference to the scientific basis or validity of the research.

The book is the author's beliefs, views and recommendations, and it you feel there is something in his methods that appeals to you and could complement other therapies then the book may be worth a read. Personally, and at present, I feel that there is nothing in this methodology that will get me a refund on my unwanted gift.

Reviewed in the Summer 1996 issue of 'Speaking Out' by Iain Harris.

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