Speech Pathologist successfully uses EFT to help people who stutter

By Andrea Fultz

Dear Gary,

Since I have studied speech pathology I was curious how EFT would work for people who stutter and how I can apply it best.  “Try it on everything!”  Here’s how it went.

Thank you,

Andrea

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I had called one of the associations of stuttering people in Munich to offer them an EFT-seminar, hoping to show them new ways of dealing with their symptoms.  They had never heard of EFT before and hadn’t used any energy healing method for stuttering before, but were willing to give it a shot.

At the University I learned that there is basically no known cure that would stop people from stuttering instantly and permanently.  However, stuttering always seems to be connected to emotional issues.  Many books on stuttering point out this connection.

One difficulty that I was faced with was the speaking part of EFT.  So when we came to the point of applying EFT in the seminar, I instructed the group of 6 people to hum the phrases using their voices as if they were speaking without articulating with their lips and keeping them shut.  It worked well!  This way nobody had a problem with stuttering while stating the phrases.

We started with a few rounds of tapping on something that they chose at that moment - a simple issue like hand pain, knee pain (something other than stuttering), which either subsided completely or improved drastically.  This convinced the group to trust EFT more and move on to the issue of stuttering.

Since I had never used EFT for stuttering people before, I had no idea what would work for them. So I decided to start with some general rounds of tapping for releasing the stuttering issue and see what happens:

Even though I stutter…

Reminder phrases: I have a hard time speaking fluently … I can’t speak freely … something is not working the way it should … I have such difficulties with speaking, this stutter…

Everybody in the group seemed to resonate well with the sentences.  It felt like the right thing to continue tapping in a more detailed way. They gave me additional information about the thoughts and emotions that come with stuttering, so I we continued:

Even though I am so embarrassed that I stutter, I accept and love myself the way I am.

Reminder phrases: I am so embarrassed … people might think I am not intelligent … my parents might be ashamed of me … people may think I am stupid … Why can’t I just stop it? … I am so embarrassed … What’s wrong with me? … I feel ashamed of myself … I’m so embarrassed.

Even though I am so afraid that I will stutter in front of other people, and therefore I avoid conversations with others, I know I am just as lovable as everybody else…

Reminder phrases: I am afraid to speak … I could mess up the words … this fear … I want to hide … I am so afraid of speaking … when I’m alone talking is a piece of cake … but when other people face me I start stuttering …  am so afraid … I have a fear of speaking … I might mess it up … but I know that I am just as lovable as everybody else … I sometimes don’t give them a chance and I hide … and I avoid talking to them … I am so afraid they will not like me … I avoid social situations …  might mess up the words … I’m so afraid.

After these rounds of tapping the group responded that it gave them great emotional relief to say all these phrases and that most of them resonated well with them.

So we gave it a shot and tested the tapping results.  Each of them read a text of about 2 minutes. They told me that almost all of them spoke significantly more fluently or with more ease than they normally do.  One of the participants didn’t stutter a single time throughout the text.  After that I continued with a short session with one of the women in the group while the others were watching and borrowing benefits.

I asked her to remember a situation when she got very intense about her stuttering.  She replied that there was a recent incident that made her very angry at a level of intensity of 7 out of 10. Remembering that particular situation she felt she was intentionally being cold-shouldered and ignored by a group of other women who she went on a trip with.  She said that she knew this was due to her stuttering.  So we tapped:

Even though these women ignored me because I stutter, and it makes me so angry…

Reminder phrases: I am so angry … they ignored me because I stutter … they didn’t talk to me … I felt so angry … I was treated unfairly … this anger.

After several rounds the anger subsided and sadness came in.  So we tapped:

Even though I am so sad that they didn’t talk to me because I stutter, I want to forgive myself and I deeply and completely accept and love myself anyway.

Reminder phrases:  This sadness … they ignored me … I felt so left out … I felt so isolated … this sadness … they didn’t really want to get to know me … they weren’t really interested in me … I felt so alone and isolated.

She got great emotional relief from that and we ended at a level of intensity of 1 or 2 out of 10 on this issue, because time was running out and we had to end the workshop.  However, she knew how to continue with tapping by herself now and so did the others.

I suggested that they tap on specific events in the past which they have an emotional intensity on, maybe a comment, maybe a picture, a certain situation that might be related to their stuttering.  Everybody in the group was very thankful.  EFT showed them a completely new way of dealing with their emotions associated with stuttering.  They even suggested that I should give a seminar at the World Congress for Stuttering People!

Andrea Fultz