A Study of the Personality Configurations of Stutterers, with a Special Reference to Insight-Re-Education Therapy

Abstract

Speech is the principal human means of participating in group life. Any disorder of speech interferes with interpersonal communication and is, therefore, as much a problem of social as of individual psychology. Stuttering, which is found among the members of all classes, whether classified according to intellectual endowment or according to social-class-membership, is one of the most distressing of all speech defects and at the same time one about the cause and treatment of which there is no certain knowledge. From the time of the first appearance of the defect the stutterer suffers intense humiliation, frustration and discouragement; he is not understood by others, nor can he understand himself. The purpose of this thesis is to inquire into the cause, or causes, of stuttering, and to consider the possibility of its alleviation. In Part I the more important modern theories and therapies are reviewed briefly, and some conclusions drawn as to their value. Three stutterers have been studied in detail with the main aim of testing the theory of causation believed to approximate most closely to the truth - the personality-configuration theory - and the therapy suggested as possibly most rewarding - insight-re-education therapy. The descriptions and full case histories of these stutterers are presented in Part II; while in Part III the course of therapy in the three cases is given, and various general conclusions which appear to be significant are drawn from the study.