I Have a Voice

are doing and so on. With practice, many such skills become automatic, and you do them without thinking. Indeed, when you are faced with returning a high velocity tennis ball you don’t have time to think. You trust your muscles have been sufficiently grooved through practice so that you can continue the volley.
The PWS has not only learned how to block, they have also learned how to be fluent, and both activities they perform automatically. As with playing tennis, they have separate neural pathways for engaging with others and for managing their state. They respond differently according to the situation. While alone or speaking to someone with whom they are comfortable, the neural pathway for fluency is activated. However, when the context triggers fear and anxiety, the neural pathway for blocking is triggered. In both cases they have options; both neural pathways are there, but only one is active.
Your state ofmind affects your behavior. During the day you experience many states, both highs and lows, pro-active and re-active. When blocking, the PWS’s state of mind tends towards re-active fear and anxiety. But in fluency they have pro-active states of mind built on calmness, trust, and curiosity, and they focus more on what they are communicating to others rather than how they are performing. Fluency states are more likely to produce enjoyment and the feeling of empowerment. Therefore the aim is to lead the PWS to change their responses so that they automatically and habitually activate the fluency response in all situations. One way of doing this is through reframing – transforming the meaning of the situation (see Chapter Six) – so that the PWS comes to minimize those frames of meaning that have “locked in the block”. However, this requires repeated practice. There is no magic cure. For fluency to become the PWS’s natural way of being, they will have to make many changes in both body and mind. Freezing
Like all muscles, [the diaphragm] tends to contract as a response to fear. Unfortunately, the diaphragm needs to relax in order to speak. You have two powerful forces trying to move the diaphragm in opposite directions. You have the natural response to fear contracting the diaphragm and drawing air in. Then you have your own desire to speak trying to relax the diaphragm so that air can move over the vocal cords. The result is what?Afrozen diaphragm, of course.
McGuire 2002: 21
Emotions such as fear profoundly affect the entire body-mind system. The fight or flight mechanism pumps adrenalin into the body for increased muscle power so that the person can run away or defend their ground. However, another response is that the person freezes to the spot. They describe themselves as being like a deer looking into the headlights. Even though the fight or flight response has been activated, all action is inhibited: they believe they have no options for action open to them. Their speaking also freezes.
Because they are no longer doing anything, this freeze-state can become associated with how they are thinking about their condition, with the judgments they are making about their own (lack of) performance and with the doom-laden consequences of being frozen or blocked in this way: “I can’t get out of this! I’m going to be blocking for the rest of my life!” That reinforces their self-evaluation that: “There is something wrong with me.” Instead of paying attention to the outside world, they are focusing on their inner thoughts, feelings, and imaginings. They are relating to themselves rather than to the other person, and shutting out potentially useful information from the world around them.
There is an alternative. Being frozen gives them time to choose some resourceful states and apply those to themselves (which I call meta-stating). There is a general sense that “the good guys win” when it comes to states. By immersing yourself in a positive, supportive and resourceful state, it will dominate the fear and anxiety and suppress or even eliminate them. What happens when you apply faith or courage to fear? (See Chapter Three.) One of the key factors in learning how to run your own mind is in managing your own states. You are teaching your body to activate life enhancing states more often so that your response to any internal or external trigger will be desirable. Childhood needs
Blocking served some vital childhood need. It is highly probable that that need is no longer relevant, but you still need to check. If the need is still current, then find out from the PWS what it does for them, so that they can find alternative ways of meeting it. Susan (Case Study 1) went on to say:
Today, when doing my journaling about life, something came up about stuttering. In fact, I even drew some pictures to express my feelings. I was journaling about how my stuttering is keeping me from where I want to go with my business. I actually drew a cage and put myself in it. When I am in the cage I think the following:
Oh, I stutter, I can’t do that.
Oh that is too big for me. Oh, wait a minute, I have to be fluent for that.
Oh, I can’t function in the business world; they will laugh at my stuttering.
I can’t handle success, it is too much.
Then I also drew several blue circles around my body, like a mummy would be taped up. I called it my stutter suit. I put this on when I am scared. When I have my stutter suit on I think the following thoughts:
I am protected.
No one can hurt me.
I am protected from all those possibilities of the unknown.”
I can control my blocking.
[Italics added. See also Alan’s story in Case Study 7]
Why would anybody want to stutter? How in the world can anybody get any kind of gain out of stuttering? And yet when you ask people how they benefit – “What do you get out of blocking?” – they give meaningful answers. In other words, blocking has to provide some benefit or