I was sitting in the train late at night on my way back home, and looked at the heaps of documents the office manager of the Dutch Stammering Association had put in my pigeon hole, when I came across your last issue of Speaking Out. I always believed things were a lot better in Britain than here, but after having only a short look at your front-page article I began to doubt about this assumption for the first time. There was this article about the Dutch Del Ferro method, which is supposed to be the cure for stammering.
As an 18 years old stammerer, I went to a course from the Del Ferro Institute in Amsterdam. I was one of their success stories and appeared on the Dutch television to demonstrate my fluency. Unfortunately, this fluency was not worth anything. It is easy just to say nothing when you expect a stammer and to avoid difficult words and phrases. The Del Ferro method is based on a simple breathing technique combined with emotional pressure. People who dare to stammer are punished. This is just enough to let a stammerer speak fluent in front of the cameras. All stammerers know the tricks, which help to speak fluent for a while (like saying "eh" all the time, avoidance, silences, using hands or feet). All stammerers know as well that these tricks only help for a short period, then they become incorporated in the normal stammering behaviour and only make things worse. In my experience, the Del Ferro method is based on nothing more!
After the "successful" Del Ferro course everyone thought I was cured: this was what they had seen on television. However, I felt more a stammerer than ever. I was avoiding all the time and feeling guilty if I stammered. I tried to escape from social contacts and tried to say as little as possible in general. This was encouraged by the Del Ferro institute: saying nothing is better than stammering. I lost all my spontaneity. Besides I lost many hopes and dreams.
I felt miserable for more than a year, while finishing school. I fled from the Netherlands and ended up in the British alternative scene. I was hanging loose for a while, learning to have fun again, re-gaining some self confidence.
I remember one moment in particular. I was standing on Balnakeil Beach in one of these real Scottish December gales when I decided to stop making myself crazy. I was no loser who just had not enough courage to cure myself from stammering! It was the Del Ferro Institute, whom I allowed to destroy my life for more than a year and that was enough!
I discovered I was not the only one who was disappointed and angry. The people I knew who did the same course were far from fluent. I firmly believe that the treatment of stammerers should be in the hands of professionals only. Unfortunately their message is not as positive and easy as the message of Del Ferro Institute, but stammering is not easy and there is no "quick fix". Of course you can do a lot about it, one step at the time. Please don't believe everything you see on television.
After travelling through Europe, I turned into a hard working university student who can cope with stammering rather than fight against it. Stammering is no major constraint for me anymore. I became active in the Dutch Stammering movement where I try to tell as many people as possible that they should not let themselves be led by claims of a "quick fix". The Del Ferro institute is expanding its business to the British market. I hope you will not be amongst their victims.
From the 'Readers' Letters' section of the Autumn '97 issue of Speaking Out.
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