Thursday, October 13, 2005

The KST deal

I am currently at the Kassel Stuttering Therapy (KST) in Germany; I spoke about the KST before: here, here, and here. Alex von Gudenberg, the founder of the intensive therapy course, has invited me back to Kassel to give critical feedback on the therapy. The KST started seven years ago, and they have been implementing the original therapy concept ever since. As the storms of starting-up a therapy and getting it approved by the health insurers are now settling, Alex has decided that it is about time to look back over the last years, use the experiences made and see whether improvements can be made to the therapy. Such a non-dogmatic attitude is certainly admirable. However, his choice of letting me drive this effort is certainly a dangerous one, giving my reputation of zero hesitation to question someone´s cherishedly held beliefs if they do not make sense logically or clash with reality!! :-) Over the next 2 and a half weeks, I will work out a detailed project plan on how to conduct the review most effectively. The actual work would then be done over the coming year; either by me, or someone else, possibly with the help of students doing their thesis or traineeship.

But this is just half of the deal. In return for my help, I will participate in the therapy as a client over the next 2 and half weks. I did the intensive therapy course nearly three years ago. I benefited from the therapy a lot fluency wise, but the effect gradually weakened. I practised a lot (every day 10-15 minutes fluency shaping techniques on the bio-feedback software for a year), but less on real people. I am the kind of person who gets easily distracted by other things (like defending an idea or suddenly having a new idea) and completely forgets about everything. And I am also very very slow in loosing habits and learning new concepts, but once I get it I can be lethally effective! Well, that´s my construct, which might also make no sense logically and clash with reality! :-)

So over the next 2 and half weeks, I will post ideas on therapies, and possibly about my progress on my own therapy. Now how schizophrenic is that? Being the patient and researcher on the patient at the same time... But a warning... I wont tell you everything... I dont want to go into KST interna, but rather foccus on general key issues that needs addressing for the review.

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