Reflections on costal breathing a decade later

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Naheem, Patrick & Laura

Naheem Bashir, Laura Lascău & Patrick Campbell look back at their experiences on courses to control their stammers, and tell us how connecting with the wider stammering community suited them more.

We recently came together, as friends who stammer, to watch old home videos recorded of us on costal-diaphragmatic breathing courses (Ed: see our Group Stammering Courses page for details of these). These courses teach a specific breathing technique where you use your rib (costal) and diaphragm muscles to control breath before and during speech.

The videos captured our 'Before' and 'After' moments from the courses, just days apart. We'd read many positive stories about these courses online, but our experiences with them had been mixed or negative. Before coming together, we felt pretty alone with them. As we watched these videos together, we found common threads in our experiences that we hadn't heard openly discussed much in the stammering community before. Through sharing our experiences, we hope to contribute to a broader conversation about stammering that honours each person's path to their voice. We hope these insights in particular help others considering or currently on these courses, especially if they have doubts about whether it is right for them in the long term.

Expectations & Experiences

There we were — Patrick at 16, Naheem at 18, and Laura at 24. We were all keen for change when we attended these costal breathing courses: to remove the burden we perceived stammering to be on our lives, become 'normal fluent people', and eventually 'overcome' our stammer. This hope for transformation brought many to these courses, and we noticed we were not the only ones who were at that point in time in a vulnerable place.

Our overall impressions of the courses were initially positive, particularly in finding community and experiencing the sense of collective euphoria that can follow. But gradually, these positive feelings faded over time, giving way to what one of the courses would call 'turbulence' — a period of struggle during which we stammered despite putting in a lot of effort to use the techniques taught to control our stammers.

Through sharing our experiences, we hope to contribute to a broader conversation about stammering that honours each person's path to their voice.

Whilst costal breathing approaches do not suggest fluency is the end goal, we still entered the courses with this hope, as many do. It felt nonsensical that we still stammered even though we put so much effort into the way we spoke. Eventually, we found that simply working harder at the techniques didn't make our stammering lives better or happier. Patrick naturally drifted away in a short space of time, preferring to speak without the technique rather than tiring himself with it.

For Naheem, every conversation became a test of breathing and speaking technique, an opportunity for either success or failure. The shame of stammering didn't dissolve for any of us; instead, it transformed into the shame of imperfect technique, of not trying hard enough, of failing to maintain control of our stammers. Overall, this cycle of monitoring and shame was exhausting.

The pressure extended beyond the mechanics of speaking and into our identities. Patrick felt pushed to present himself as a 'recovering stammerer', a label that never felt authentic but seemed necessary to fit in at 16. 

Additionally, while the group setting of the courses offered us support, their intensity left little room for moving at our own pace of growth. Laura would later find one-to-one therapy more suited for her, where she could explore her relationship with stammering on her terms and progress in her own direction, according to her needs. She found qualified speech and language therapists more open, compared to the 'coaches' on the courses, to helpful discussions on the evidence for their approaches and engaging in concerns or questions about them.

Support & Mental Health

The support systems offered on these courses, such as support groups and phone lists, were impressive in size and scope. However, once we decided to move away from the costal breathing courses, we lost access to these support systems. The isolation went deeper as some of us had been advised early on in these courses that, in order to avoid disrupting our course progress, we should avoid socialising with people who stammer but were not using the breathing and speaking techniques. This advice disconnected us from the wider stammering community, which we would go on to connect with after leaving the courses. The wider community helped us see our stammering differently and provided a new support system that was not rooted in technique and the accompanying mindset.

We now feel this one-size-fits-all approach reinforced a message that our stammering wasn’t just wrong but a personal fault and a sign that we weren't trying hard enough.

Looking back, what also concerns us is the coaches lacked certified therapeutic training. Without proper training, we felt they couldn't always recognise or handle the complex psychological aspects of stammering. Mental health was rarely discussed on these courses. For example, Patrick is especially aware he was 16 at the time of the course and therefore impressionable. Several comments from coaches and leaders on the importance of controlling stammering that he heard on the course stuck with him through school and university. 

Naheem was sometimes told that working harder at the technique and the approach was the solution to any feelings of struggle. We now feel this one-size-fits-all approach reinforced a message that our stammering wasn't just wrong but a personal fault and a sign that we weren't trying hard enough. This mindset increased our shame and anxiety around stammering. Years later, we would engage in professional therapeutic help to work through negative beliefs about stammering that had been, at times, reinforced on these courses.

Reflections for our younger selves

Reflecting back now, these courses were part of our stammering journey, and we respect those who find them empowering to their voice and beneficial in the long term. Our experiences of these courses, however, led us on different paths. The experiences described in this article were part of us becoming who we are today. They were the first step towards the more positive and gentle relationship we have developed with how we talk.

If we could go back, what we'd all want to say to our younger selves is: I see you. I see the energy it takes. I see the toll of trying to be perfect. And I want you to know — you can let it go. You can step away from self-correction and control and be proud of your voice.

Of course, we remember the depth of shame we felt then and how it could make any message of self-acceptance feel impossible to hear. So, to our younger selves and others considering moving away from these approaches, we'd perhaps say something gentler: 

It's okay to take a break and reflect on the various elements that make up these courses. Trust your inner compass when it tells you what feels right or wrong for your voice. Be curious, be gentle with yourself, take with you what your gut feeling tells you is right, and leave the rest behind. There's a world of approaches to living well with a stammer out there, and exploring them isn't just okay — it can be a vital part of your personal journey and finding your way home to your voice.

You can read other peoples' experiences of similar courses via the links to each provider on our Adult Group Stammering Courses page.

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