For the last 3 years I have been supervised externally by someone not in my profession. I hadn’t thought anything of how this may differ from previous supervision at the time of seeking it – I was more interested in receiving supervision from someone independent from my workplace, their profession didn’t really come in to … Read more
Throughout our MSc in Speech and Language Sciences at UCL we have been trained to use active listening. It’s a key clinical skill. As trainee SLTs we listen when we collaborate with clients to take case histories. But these are often about a snapshot in time. What happens when clients complete assessment and intervention? How … Read more
If someone had said to me few years ago that I would one day write a blog about something I am extremely conscious of, I would have laughed out loud! But here I am and this means a big step for me. As long as I can remember, I have always stammered. I remember when … Read more
Disclosing one’s stammer is easy they say… vital I say. In fact it is very much a technique I subscribe to, use frequently and encourage others to try. Imagine going into a stressful situation, an interview for example; walk through the door, friendly handshake, introductions gone well, half way through the first question, BLOCK. No … Read more
When I say to people sometimes that I see my stammering as a positive in my life, they can find it a strange notion. Normally people can only envisage stammering as a negative concept. My stammering is my natural pattern of speech, and having a stammer does not limit my speech nor hinder my conversations. … Read more
I like to be really transparent. Early after a TBI, I had such magnificently apparent social communication impairments that my verbal blurts were excused. As I recovered in visual processing, attention, balance, auditory processing, and something else I can’t remember (probably memory), I looked a lot less disabled. That made the blurts more noticeable and … Read more
Supervision. The word invokes many different thoughts for me. The many supervisors I have had, and the many people I have supervised. And the formality of the word. I got a bit stuck when trying to move past this, so I read through multiple blog posts about having one’s communication shaped, ‘therapyed’ or embraced. These … Read more
Martyn: “Do you ever read poetry?” Me : “No. Of course not.” Martyn: “You might try it sometime. David Whyte1, something like that.” It had been just a short conversation but, as usual, his intuition was spot on. I’d been discussing with Martyn Brown, my Executive Coach at Ashridge2, my progress towards becoming more of … Read more
Having recently been signposted to the photos and videos Steven Halliday has put together on the British Stammering Association Twitter page, I came across a fascinating speech by the actress, Emily Blunt at an American Institute for Stuttering Gala Dinner in 2009. (Listen here) My initial response was one of surprise … Read more