Case No. 87.522—­Here was a case of a type that is very, very common.  It was that of a girl, 17 years of age, from a good family, well-educated and having all the marks of careful training in a home of refinement.  The most marked characteristic of her case was the tendency to recur.  In other words, she was an Intermittent Stammerer, who had believed (as had her parents) that the tendency to get better was an indication that she would soon outgrow the trouble.  “If Marie still stammers by the time she is 18—­” this had come to be almost a household word, for if she stammered at that time, it was the intention of her parents (so they said) to have the girl placed under treatment.  As was to be expected, she continued to stammer and continued to get steadily worse, although the tendency to be better and worse by turns was maintained throughout the years.  The periods of improvement were eagerly seized by her parents, year after year, as indications of out-growing, while the periods of relapse were seldom spoken of and usually ignored.  It was another case of the old saying that:  “We like to think that the thing will happen which we want to happen,” and since they wanted the daughter to outgrow her trouble, they insisted in believing, despite their own unexpressed fears, that the daughter would “eventually get over it!”

She did not get over it, however, and the critical age of 16 brought on a condition so severe that her parents became alarmed about her and sought advice as to what should be done.

An examination of her case brought out the fact that she had probably inherited a predisposition to stammer, but that the immediate cause of the trouble had been fright, caused by a nurse who had tried to discipline the girl when small, by telling her that the “bogey-man” would get her if she didn’t do certain things as told.  This disciplining by means of fear is never a safe procedure and in this case had been carried to extremes on many occasions, finally resulting in the child becoming a stammerer.

She had a case of Genuine Stammering in its second stage and, according to her own statement at the time the examination was made, had become much worse in the last two years.  At age 15 it seems that everyone felt secure in the belief that her trouble would pass away, but at age 17, the condition became critical, the disorder having previously passed into the second stage.

Two and a half weeks worked a wonderful improvement in the girl’s condition, at the end of which time she was compelled to return to her home on account of a death in the family.  She remained at home for almost a month, after which she returned to me to complete the cure.  Even under such an unusual and unfavorable circumstance as this, she remained with me the last time only four weeks, and has, according to her report, never stammered since, nor has she been oppressed by the overpowering sense of fear that formerly seized her when she thought of trying to talk.