Making Stuttering Manageable: The Use of Narrative Therapy

Margaret M. Leahy and Alex Warren

Narrative therapy focuses on increasing the meaningfulness of changes made in therapy, and ultimately, on the deconstruction of the undesirable elements of a person’s dominant narrative. For people who stutter, the role of stuttering can take precedence over most other activities in life, demanding time and attention on a daily basis. In this paper jointly presented by a client and a therapist, the stages of narrative therapy, their implementation and effects will be discussed. Narrative therapy complements the traditional focus on the impairment, concentrating on individuals’ sense of identity, their personal experiences of ‘disorder’, and their unique abilities to counter ‘the speech problem’ storyline.