Sunday, October 16, 2005

KST Day 2-4: Facing reality

Not too much has happened during Friday and Saturday. (Sunday was a day-off). I concentrated mostly on the therapy, and did not spend much time on the therapy evaluation scheme. But I do keep a diary and write down my impressions. I make a list of suggestions that could improve the therapy. From tomorrow onwards, I will spend more time of the general framework of the therapy evaluation. My idea is to treat a therapy as a list of therapy components, and each components has different properties like a description, time needed, financial costs, applicability to everyone, dependance on other therapy components, and so on. I am working on the list. And the idea is to fully document the therapy in this way. And then I want to collect as many therapy components as possible from other therapies. And then it is easier to compare. Hey, that is the theory... not sure how it works out in practise.

So over the last days I have been practising on the computer, and during free time. It is very difficult to practise during the free time. Many patients do not manage, forget and speak normally. I have the impression that unlike the therapy 3 years ago I manage to apply the technique more consistenly during free time. The most frightening session was on Friday afternoon. We had to watch the videos made before the therapy. And several patients were very taken back by the own stuttering video. This was the first time that they saw themselves stuttering: shaking their heads, putting out their tongues, making facial grimaces, many filler, and so on. But everyone survived the ordeal... I am a strong believer in that you need to let everyone face reality... no sugar coating of reality... OK I make the exception for people who cannot handle the experience psychologically. But this is may be 5% at most, and it is the art of the therapist to know who that is.

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