Hi 3D Resident. I just wanted to share something with you that may help someone else as well.
One important thing I've learned from recapitulation is 'mapping' and something I learned from General Semantics is the importance of accurate correspondence between the map and the territory. That is, to be as accurate as is possible considering the 'map' and the 'territory' represent two different levels of abstraction.
One possible way out of emotional identification with this issue at certain times, could be to let your awareness expand in order to accomodate more and more information that is present during a stuttering 'incident,' similar to the way a pupil dilates to accomodate more and more light.
Regarding the last two times you stuttered: what time was it? Where were you geographically? Were you inside or outside some shelter? What internal conditions were you under? Consider stress levels, what you wanted to say, how bad you wanted to say it, what was the subject, what were the words/sounds/letters you stumbled over, who were you talking to, was it raining, how was the temperature, what were you wearing, what were they wearing, what points of view were involved, what was any sub-text going on, etc.,etc.
By doing your best to keep these blanks filled in and recapitulating the time of life when this 'all' started, you could possibly get some insights or answers.
Regarding the issue of Identification and balling up similarities while dropping out differences, here's a quote that you or someone else might find helpful (or not):
[quote author=People in Quandries]
NON-ALLNESS
There are two other fundamental premises closely related to the one we have been discussing. The first of these may be stated as "A is not all A." This is much more understandable in its more specific form, "the word does not represent all the object," or "the map does not represent all the territory." This premise expresses the fundamental notion that abstracting is a process of leaving out details. One can never say all about anything, just as one can never observe all of anything. This may be succinctly stated as the premise of non-allness.
It is supplementary to the premise of non-identity.
In terms of ordinary human behavior, the law of identity tends to generate an attitude of allness, a way of evaluating an abstract as if it were not an abstract but as if it were, rather, all there were to be evaluated. This is to be seen generally in connection with rumor or gossip. People evaluate second-, or fifth-, or tenth-hand statements (abstracts) as if they were sufficient and conclusive. They form judgments of the individuals concerned, and even take action, often with grave consequences, on the basis of such high-order abstracts.
Urging people not to spread rumor, appealing to their "sense of fairness," etc., usually is quite ineffective, since the basic orientation of identity makes it practically inevitable that people so orientated will identify different levels of abstraction, and quite "innocently" react to high and low levels as though they were alike. It is not that gossipmongers are inherently "bad," "vicious," etc. In a sense, they are simply uneducated (no matter how much schooling they have had).
Unconscious of abstracting, unaware of the differences and relations among levels of abstraction, they mistake high-order inferences for first-order descriptions, and descriptions for facts, and "facts" (as personally abstracted) for realities. They do not maliciously mean to do this. Doing it is simply an integral aspect of an identity orientation. All the preaching and teaching on earth, including threats of punishment and death and promises of heaven, are essentially powerless against it, unless that teaching results in a basic orientation to non-identity and the supplementary non-allness.
Individuals thoroughly trained to non-identity and non-allness do not suppress their impulses to indulge in gossip. They just don't have such impulses. They have not learned, lo and behold, how to be good. They have simply become conscious of their abstracting processes. Like Pooh Bear a few pages back, they have got wise to themselves. They have learned that what they say is not what they say it about, and that what they look at is not what they see.
The moralist would say they have achieved tolerance and understanding, or that they have been "reborn," or have "found the light." The fact is that they have learned the difference between a signal and a symbol. An abstract, evaluated as such, is recognized as a symbol. A symbol represents something other than itself, and a symbol reaction is a reaction that is made not to the symbol directly, but to the something else which it represents or symbolizes.
A rumor evaluated as an abstract, and so as a symbol, is not reacted to directly. What is reacted to are the facts back of, or supposedly represented by, the rumor. And if no facts can be found, no reaction is forthcoming. There is no mysterious "sense of fairness," or "strength of character," or "inhibition," or "will power" involved. It is simply that no adequate stimulus to action is found, so no reaction is made.
On the other hand, a rumor evaluated not as an abstract, and therefore not as a symbol, but as a fact, tends to be reacted to directly, as though it were a signal. And to signals, we tend to react, as do animals, in relatively undelayed, thoughtless, stereotyped ways.
Thus, insofar as words or statements are evaluated as signals rather than as symbols, our reactions to them tend to become abnormally prompt, unreflective, and pathologically consistent. We become hoop-jumpers, responding faithfully and in set patterns to the words and slogans that are thrown at us. We can be depended upon like so many trained seals. Levels of abstraction are identified by us, and the words we hear or read are all that is required to get us to react. Under such conditions, when symbols become signals, it is fatefully true, as Korzybski has stressed, that "those who rule the symbols rule you."
Identity and allness go hand in hand, as do non-identity and non-allness. If rumor (macroscopic) is rumor (description) is rumor (inference), then rumor (inference) is all that is required for a reaction to rumor (macroscopic). If rumor (inference) is not rumor (macroscopic) one cannot react promptly and in a stereotyped manner to rumor (inference)- One must wait and find out what there is to react to as rumor (description) or, better, as rumor (macroscopic)- And even this latter will not be reacted to except as it is understood to be an abstract of rumor (submicroscopic), and so not absolutely dependable.
If, for example, stutterer1 is stutterer2 is stutterer3, etc., if a stutterer is a stutterer, then all one needs to know in order to react to an individual is that he is a stutterer, and the reaction will be made quickly, with relatively no delay, since essentially the same reaction is to be made to stutterer1 as to any other stutterer. But if stutterer1 is not stutterer2, one cannot react to the label with prompt finality; one must know more than the fact that the individual is called a stutterer. He may be also the King of England or the Russian Foreign Commissar. He may even be, by any ordinary standards, a normal speaker.
All this may sound so much like common sense and common knowledge that it would appear necessary to guard against the deceptive illusion of utter familiarity. To say, "That is nothing new" is all too often to say, in effect, "I have stopped learning about that." It is one of our most common and effectively paralyzing ways of expressing an attitude of allness. To call something "old stuff" frequently indicates nothing about what we so label; rather, it reveals simply that we do not intend to make any effort to increase our knowledge, to improve our understanding, or to change our habits. "Old stuff" means, "I know it all already." An attitude of this kind—"You can't tell me anything about that"—has an effect quite similar to that of a pus sac in the brain.
What there is for most of us to learn, beyond what we already know, about non-allness is simply that an ever-clear awareness of non-allness as a principle provides us with greater assurance that we will behave as if we knew that our knowledge and our statements are never complete and final. This consciousness of non-allness is part of the "know-how" of adequate behavior. And "know-what" without "know-how" is generally futile.
The case of Henry is a good illustration of this. Henry was a behavior problem. Everyone who was supposed to deal with him finally gave up and called in a psychologist. The psychologist came, examined the school records, talked long and in detail with Henry's teachers, his school superintendent, his distraught parents. He talked with Henry, he gave him tests, he observed him at work and at play. Then he called Henry into private conference and delivered his considered judgment: "Henry," he said, "you've simply got to control your temper."
Henry blew up. "Control your temper! Control your temper! My pa and ma have told me that, over and over again. My teachers have all told me that, my superintendent, the preacher, everybody, they've all told me I have to control my temper. Now you tell me. Listen. Just how in hell do you control your temper?"
It is useless, sometimes to the point of disaster, to know something without knowing how to act as though you knew it. The purpose of being clearly aware of basic principles, such as those of non-identity and non-allness, is that they make for more intelligent, adaptive regulation of one's behavior than any rules of thumb and routine habits ever could. They provide one with an important measure of know-how.[/quote]
Wendell Johnson, PEOPLE IN QUANDARIES, Harper & Row, 1989, p180-183
