Nijmegen Intensive Course, Nov. 06
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006by Allan McGroarty
Nijmegen is situated near the border with Germany and is the oldest town in the Netherlands. Easily reached from inside and outside the country, it’s a fashionable student town with good accommodation and friendly people. You might say it’s ideal for a McGuire course.
People who stutter from 9 countries attended this one: Scotland, Denmark, Ireland, England, South Africa, USA, Belgium, Sweden and, of course, the Netherlands. We also had a Dutch speech and language therapist in attendance. The course was run mainly in English with key material translated into Dutch. Some of the English speakers tried their hand at the Dutch language and this added an element of fun to the presentations. We all have the difficulties of stuttering in common, but the differing cultural backgrounds brought some diverse perspectives and so we learned a lot from and about each other over the 3 days. One of the new students summed it up by noting that this course was "multinational, multicultural and multilingual".
Wednesday evening included a session on the dynamics of stuttering. As well as looking at aspects of physical struggle, we discussed stuttering as an approach-avoidance conflict, the iceberg of stuttering and the cycle of anxiety / panic. This background content is necessary to fully understand the programme objectives - learning a physical technique, overcoming avoidance, increasing self-acceptance, developing initiative and confidence to tackle feared speaking situations, and eventually letting go and having some fun speaking. It was made clear that all of the course activities were aimed at meeting these objectives.
Throughout Thursday and Friday, the 4 new students engaged with the course material and exercises in a way that was inspirational to the rest of us. It was a reminder of what can be achieved in a relatively short period of time. Credit goes to the new students themselves and to those who worked so supportively with them in the early stages.
Working to overcome stuttering requires a high level of concentration and disciplined effort and the sessions were designed with this is mind. Particularly in the early stages, it can be very hard work. However, it’s possible (too easy?) to take a spartan regime too far. There are clear limits to human endurance and attention spans - push too hard and for too long and the law of diminishing returns is evident. For this reason, we aimed to strike a good balance between disciplined effort and some lighter moments and I believe we succeeded.
Like the Irish programme, the Dutch courses run to a 3-day schedule. Debate will continue, I’m sure, on whether this is preferable to the standard 4-day format. A growing number of us on the programme have experience of both now and this allows us to draw comparisons. (I’ve been around long enough to remember the original 5-day schedule…) The 3-day format requires tighter scheduling and a somewhat faster pace to cover the course content, but that can be a positive. Indeed, the 3-day schedule brings a focus that might sometimes be absent over 4 days.
On Saturday morning, we moved into the Harrison workshop session. John Harrison’s public speaking exercises, originally intended for the National Stuttering Project, play a central role on McGuire intensive courses. John argues that “many people who stutter are terrific speakers. They’re alive; they’re electric; they establish excellent personal rapport with their audience. They get their audience to feel good about them, because they feel good about themselves.” He’s right. My vantage point as facilitator of the Harrison session let me see the room come alive with energy and self-expression.
Despite the gloomy predictions, the rain held off on Saturday afternoon and, following a successful street contact session, everyone returned to the Hotel Mercure for a brief rest. During the feedback session, it was clear that the students had gained a lot from their self-disclosures and had experienced very positive feedback from the general public. (Joseph Sheehan was right – given the right circumstances, it is possible to have fun working on your stuttering). The final sessions on Saturday were spent orienting the new students towards the follow-up support network and the activities that will maximise their chances of ongoing success. The message, I hope, was clear – what we do beyond the McGuire courses is really what makes the difference in the long term.
Thanks again and dank u wel to the graduates who prepared and ran sessions: Danny Stienen (Directions, Relapse Mechanisms), Mikael Crona (Laws, Self-Actualisation, Harrison coaching), Juul Kampstra (Overkilling), Kenny Scheerlenck (Rules), Michael Schiffelers, Derek Johnson (Harrison coaching); Sheila Denny (Mantras, graduate session), Alan Rogan (Hexagon, Harrison coaching), Mads Terndrup (New student/refresher checklist), Cindy Bolger (graduate session), and Stephen Harte (graduate session, Checklist).
Finally, Frits Boshuijer (Regional Director) ran his first course in November 2005, so this course marked the 1st anniversary of the ‘modern’ Dutch programme. With 22 returning graduates, it was the largest Dutch course to date. Gefeliciteerd Frits. As the region continues to grow in future months and years, it will help more and more people who stutter in the Netherlands and surrounding areas. This course in Nijmegen was, I believe, another firm step in that direction.