Mindfulness & Stuttering

Mindfulness & Stuttering provides information to help the reader decide whether or not mindfulness may be a congenial strategy to help resolve a stuttering problem. Recent research verifies that mindfulness, a means to greater self-awareness and well-being practiced for more than 2,500 years, facilitates desired personal change. From reducing stress to lessening negative self-talk and by improving the ability to learn new skills, practicing mindfulness leads to living with greater ease. Ellen-Marie Silverman, Ph.D., a speech pathologist for more than 40 years and a Fellow of the American Speech-Hearing-Language Association, has been practicing mindfulness for more than 16 years and has used the practice with her own stuttering problem to speak and communicate with greater ease. In Mindfulness & Stuttering, she addresses questions and concerns people may have about the practice of mindfulness and its application to stuttering problems and describes the use of six mindfulness techniques --- shamatha-vipassana, working with shenpa, maitri, lojong, using gatha's, and tonglen --- as secular practices. She shows how mindfulness can help address two concerns people with a covert or overt stuttering problem may have, Fear of Stuttering and Struggling to Speak, and offers suggestions for constructively managing impatience, boredom, and relapse, obstacles that can arise when learning to speak with greater ease. Dr. Silverman is the author of Relief From Stuttering. Laying the Groundwork to Speak with Greater Ease.
About the Author: Ellen-Marie Silverman, Ph.D., Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, was Director of the Fluency Clinic at Marquette University. She holds the Ph.D. in speech pathology from the University of Iowa and was a post-doctoral fellow in developmental psycholinguistics at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She later trained as a transactional analysis counselor. Dr Silverman, a speech pathologist for more than 40 years, has been a member of several university faculties. More recently, she has been CEO of TSS, Inc., a healthcare staffing support service company she founded. Dr. Silverman has been practicing shamatha-vipassana mindfulness meditation since 1996. In 2003, she recognized that the Tibetan Buddhist concept of shenpa, the sense we all have of feeling hooked and our habituated desire to flee the experience, incisively described the development and persistence of her own stuttering problem and those of many clients she has known. Incorporating shenpa work into her shamatha-vipassana meditation practice along with the mindfulness practices of maitri, lojong, tonglen, and the recitation of gathas then applying these strategies to her own stuttering problem has helped her speak with increasing ease, confidence, and satisfaction. Dr. Silverman has presented nationally and internationally to colleagues and students about the nature, prevention, and treatment of stuttering problems. She has shared her experience applying mindfulness to stuttering at several International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conferences for people who have stuttering problems and for professionals, students-in-training, and people interested in stuttering. The recipient of research awards, Dr. Silverman has published extensively in peer-reviewed publications, contributed chapters to textbooks, and authored a textbook on clinical practice, Mind Matters. She authored The Jason Loring Trilogy which depicts a life lived and lived with a stuttering problem.