Okay, Jerome, a reader on my blog, is a gift that just keeps on giving, regarding blogging material. Yesterday, he made another comment on a post that got my attention. I quote: "I'm convinced (though I cannot prove it) that if I were to have amnesia and therefore wouldn't remember that I was 'supposed' to stutter, I wouldn't stutter anymore."

This is an intriguing concept to consider. I have heard, on a few occassions, by one expert or another, that stuttering is an authentic affliction up until one is around the age of 12 or so. Beyond that, it's a habit. Just as you can't "forget" how to smoke...(which is what makes quitting so difficult)...you can't "forget" how to stutter. It's become such a habit to tense up and expect to stutter, that you sort of cause it to happen. Perhaps it's an example of "which came first"...the stutter or the approach to speaking that causes the stutter?

If I could have amnesia for a day...it's very possible that I'd have no idea that I ever became stressful when approaching speech...and that, for that day alone, I'd not stutter. Of course, this only works if it's true that my stutter is only a result of my own stress towards speaking. If the affliction exists whether I'm stressed or not when approaching speech, then it probably wouldn't work...and I'd simply discover on that day that I stutter...discovering it all over again for the first time.

I tend to agree with Jerome, however, that I probably wouldn't stutter. I believe this because, for my own speech, when I am pretty confident...I won't stutter. For example, if I talk to myself in my car alone...there is no stutter. And one of the major problems of learning to become confident in situations where I'm usually stressed...I have this entire history behind me of being stressed in those situations...that I have to sort of "unlearn". It's easy to say, "I will no longer be stressed"...it's not so easy to put that into action, since I have years and years of becoming stressed in those situations behind me, providing a very firm foundation of stress that is nearly impossible to overcome.

If I could forget about it, though...as with amnesia, perhaps that would solve the problem. Thinking further, I wonder if hypnosis could undo some of that historical foundational stress?.