It’s the holiday season and I thought I would finish my last post for 2013 by discussing the “gift of empathy.” A wonderful colleague of mine at theMichael Palin Centre in London introduced me to the work of Dr. Brené Brown, an expert researcher on shame and the ability empathy has on extinguishing shame. Shame relates to stuttering by feeling defective, bad, or a “failure.” For some people who stutter, feelings of shame can emerge in the school age years when he calls himself a “stutterer” and it is the way he is. These feelings can linger into adulthood and reduce the overall quality of life in adults who stutter as “shamed people want to hide.”
by Voon Pang
