Abstract

DIAS, Thiago Corrêa da Silva Candido; ALVES, Cristiane  and  VANDENBERGHE, Luc. The treatment of stuttering and the therapist-client relationship: A case study. Acta comport. [online]. 2014, vol.22, n.3, pp. 352-364. ISSN 0188-8145.

The present article describes a 25-year-old adult's stuttering in the context of specific aspects of his learning history and of interpersonal situations with which he deals in his daily life. Both the client's daily life speech problems and the treatment process itself were analyzed in relation to the client's ways of coping with aversive aspects that are part of those situations. Treatment promoted specific behaviors that put the client in a better position for dealing with the challenges of interpersonal contact. Treatment addressed the client's difficulties to confront the problems that are inherent in speech situations. These interventions targeted not only the client's reported daily life problems, but also his spontaneous behavior in the personal relationship with the therapist. The article discusses how the interweaving of therapeutic techniques focused on reported daily life behavior and on the relationship in the sessions leads to a reduction in the frequency of stuttering related problems, to better coping with conversational situations and with the interpersonal conditions he experienced as difficult, while the expectancy to stutter lost its aversive menacing meaning for him.

Keywords : behavior analysis; therapist-client relationship; stuttering.

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