Jan Anderson BSc. Hons, MRCSLT E-mail: jan.anderson@ecosse.net

Jan Anderson is a specialist speech and language therapist with extensive experience of working with people who stammer. She qualified as a speech and language therapist in 1985 (Central School of Speech & Drama, London) and obtained an advanced diploma in "Counselling and Interpersonal Skills" (Institute of Education, London) in 1992. From 1987 - 1993 she worked at The City Lit (London) which is a national specialist centre offering intensive and weekly therapy to adults who stammer. Jan moved to Edinburgh in 1993 and has worked with people who stammer and in the field of stammering in a variety of ways since that time.

Professional experience in Edinburgh

• she works in independent practice offering affordable individual speech therapy and counselling to people who stammer (with clients from Edinburgh and further afield)
• she established a group for adults who stammer through the local community education service in January 1995
• she led this group for several years during which time it transferred to the Chaplaincy Centre of the University of Edinburgh
• the present Edinburgh Stammering Support Group has evolved from this group and she continues to offer regular input to its meetings
• she teaches speech and language therapy students at Queen Margaret University College about stammering therapy for adults
• she attends and presents at national and international conferences
• she is on the national committee of the "Special Interest Group" for speech and language therapists in this field and edits their regular newsletter
• she was one of the founder members of the Scottish group of the British Stammering Association and is actively involved in this forum.
• she is a specialist advisor to the British Stammering Association

Approach to stammering therapy

Jan's approach to stammering therapy encompasses attending to the person's inner experience of stammering as well as working directly on speech change. She believes it is not appropriate to tackle stammering at a purely behavioural level. Her way of working draws on the wisdom of two well-known giants of stammering therapy - Joseph Sheehan and Charles Van Riper, her post-qualifying training in counselling and psychotherapeutic approaches and her many years of clinical practice.

Her approach would broadly be classified as "stammer-more-fluently" (like Sheehan and Van Riper). This means that she does not focus on achieving "fluency" as the main goal of therapy. Rather than teaching a new speaking technique which might lead to short term fluency, she aims to help people to develop a constructive attitude towards stammering which in turn leads to reduced tension and speech struggle and access to more naturally fluent speech. Broadly speaking, the long term goal of this approach is to decrease the impact and significance of stammering for the person and to teach effective ways of handling moments of dysfluency when they arise. This is in recognition of the fact that the vast majority of people who stammer in adulthood are likely to continue to experience some level of dysfluency at times.

Jan offers individual therapy, tailored to the needs of each client, and structured courses which consist of three main phases:

• identification

increasing understanding and awareness of stammering

• desensitisation

reducing negative reactions to and avoidance of stammering

• modification

easing forwards through stammering.

She uses counselling skills and process work to help explore the inner experience of stammering more fully.

In summary, her approach is flexible and the balance of speech therapy and psychological therapy is tailored to the needs of the individual or group concerned.