Let’s say we have a ferocious tiger that represents our stuttering. Your tiger and your stuttering are one in the same. We can try to lock that tiger in a closet but he’s too powerful for the door so he bursts through it. The tiger is able to escape whenever it wants. And when it exits its closet, he will pounce on you, tear you up and ruthlessly kick your butt.

It won’t work if you try to deal with this ferocious tiger by turning your back on him. He’ll continue to kick your butt. You think to yourself Tiger’s not there— OW! Tiger’s not there— OW! Denial of stuttering does not work. Covering up your stutter doesn’t seem to work either.

So you turn to face the tiger. It’s a frightening process but you confront him. And you may get beat down at first, but you don’t let that tiger make your decisions. Slowly, your tiger begins to lose its power over you, and you begin to experience more peace and control over your life. You may even get into voluntary stuttering, which is a reversal of power. Stuttering used to make you afraid of talking and feel like a failure of communication. But as your tiger gets weaker, you get to that point that you’re more in control of yourself and your speech.

You now have the tiger on a leash and you walk around town; your fear of stuttering and social punishment is now minimal. You may even go up to people and volitionally stutter! Hey! Do you wanna see my tiger? And you reach a point where you’re actually proud of it.

And you start showing him off. And you take the tiger back off the leash and you’re petting him.

When you face the animal, the animal can back down. When you face stuttering, it is so much easier to manage than when you try to turn your back on it.

[more about The Tiger Analogy in the About section]