"Become the Boss of Your Mind”

This article is about a layman who, according to hundreds of his followers,has found neuroscience-based waysof solving an allegedly “incurable” medical disorder – stuttering. There are believed to be 80 million people whostutter (PWS), many of whom live their lives with limited to no speech, and too many are suicidal. The name of the innovator of these life-saving methods is Lee Lovett, the author of eight stuttering-related books and co-founderof the world’s only community of EX-stutterers, an IRS-approved charity by the name of World Stop Stuttering Organization (WSSA).

Before retiring to Bermuda 35 years ago, Lee enjoyed a successful career in law and co-founded many dozens of businesses (primarily in FM radio, cable TV and cellular telephone), most of which were sold to public companies, as his bio reflects (http://leeglovett.com/about/. His career, however, had a very rocky start – namely, a stuttering-speech disability, which Lee conquered and later wrote books to help PWS and, then, coachedthem online, thousands of hours, all for free.

While the medical community continues to maintain that stuttering is “an incurable disorder and should be accepted”, Lovett and his ex-stuttering students advise that their neuroscience based methodsare stopping stuttering in over 90% of their PWS-cases, and they have documented and published supporting data for 200+ suchcases. The charity-WSSA now providesa massive and very inexpensive programfor stutterers and speech anxiety sufferers worldwide.

Some Speech Language Pathologists (SLP’s) are just now beginning to embrace Lee’s and WSSA’s methods. In the Introduction of Lee’s latest book (“Stop Stuttering SHORT Course”), Rhode Island-based SLP-Marjorie Foer writes, “The Lovett Method is now enabling many to become fluent…I am incorporating it into my therapy.” In the same Introduction, Florida-based SLP-Peggy Beaulieu writes much the same, referringto these methods as “the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel” for PWS. Most exciting, Bermuda-based SLP-Marissa Brangman, has established a Committee of Speech Professionals to Support Fluency for PWS. The Committee’s very name suggests a realization that stuttering’s long held “incurability” dogma may be wrong. SLP-Brangman is encouraging SLP’s worldwide to join this cause and help fellow-Bermudian-Lovett and the Bermuda-created WSSA spread their neuroscience methods to speech professionals and stutterers worldwide. In the process, SLP-Brangman and Lovett believe that Bermuda is on the way to becoming the world’s “cradle of fluency” for PWS – by inspiring more speech professionals to adopt The Neuroscience Method that potentially could leadto stopping stuttering worldwide.

These positive developments had their roots in Lee Lovett’s youth. As a child, Lee had a stutter that precluded him from speaking under pressure, especially tostrangers, authority figures, females, and groups.Hereceived no therapy. After completing law school, Lee triedhis first case in a courtroom, where his father, an eloquent lawyer, and several hundred others werepresent. Unfortunately, Lee's stutter prevented him from saying his name, his client’s name and, thereafter, almost anything. The Judge had to finish his words for him. It was a disaster. Lee advises that he wanted to die, quite literally, then and there. Then 25 and married with two children, and broke, he felt his law career was doomed;he even contemplated suicide.

Shortly thereafter, Lee sought help from the late psychiatrist-Frank S. Caprio, M.D., who suggested that Lee try self-hypnosis (SH). They worked on SH, and he gave Lee a book to study. Lee began giving himself three, daily, 20-minute SH sessions, and his speech began to improve. Following what Lee now calls the “Neuroscience Method” of stopping stuttering, Lee began to become, as he says, the boss of his mind. Benefiting from his then new self-programmed thinking, hegradually discovered methods, strategies, and tools that he could use to avoid stuttering. By age 30, he had stopped stuttering. He has not stuttered since; it has been over 50 years. He even became a popular speaker at broadcast and cable TV-related conventions, also speaking live repeatedly on radio and TV. Lee now insists that stuttering was a blessing in his life, because it led him to daily mind-training that helped him deal with non-speech issues, thus elevating his life.

Many online stuttering communities (often run by speech professionals who believe and espouse the incurability-acceptance dogma), do not allow Lee and his hundreds of ex-stutterers to post the good news (that stuttering is now being routinely stopped by most). Many speech professionals generally continue to insist that stuttering is “incurable,” because 90% of them never stuttered and the other 10% still stutter; so, understandably, they can’t understand the problem, much less any solutions. That’s the great tragedy that Lee and his charity (and now some enlightened SLP’s led by Marissa Brangman) are trying to change. The world’s 80M PWS need to know that stuttering can be stopped by most by using the newly discovered Neuroscience Method.

For decades, Lee helped other stutterers (as a charitable service), especially children overcome stuttering and compiled extensive notes, which led to the first of his eight stuttering-related books in 2016 (“Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures: Become the Boss of Your Mind”). Lee included his email address in his books,inviting stutterers/PWS to contact him for free advice. This led Lee to coaching PWS every day on Skype, coaching over 7,000 hours in the last eight years, all no charge. Several hundred of his “students” have stopped stuttering (over 90% of those whom he has helped). Beginning in 2017, Leebegan asking his ex-stuttering students to post "Stopped Stuttering Stories" (SSS) online in aSpeech Hall of Fame (PWSSs Archive - Speech Anxiety Anonymous), which Lee and his speech mates had created. There are over 200 of those SSS posted there now, and almost as many are also posted on WSSA’s website (WSSA SSS).

Lee’s latest (and he advises “best”) stuttering book is "How to Stop Stuttering and Love Speaking," which explains the latest neuroscience-based methods. He also wrote a user-friendly, 86-page summary of it, called “Stop Stuttering SHORT Course”. These books explain how to use what his followers call “The Neuroscience Method” of stopping stuttering techniques to reprogram the minds and beliefs of thosewho stutter (PWS). Once their stuttering is stopped, they use the same reprogramming method to attack non-speech issues, like anxiety, anger, jealousy, hatred and other mental problems that plague most humans.

This Neuroscience Method of stopping stutteringurges PWS to talk in their stutter-free zones and to listen to recordings of their own fluent speech even while they sleep and, further, to practice self-hypnosis or auto-suggestion techniques throughout the day. It also urges use of TEMPORARY tools like "Crutches" and "Speech Plans" to avoid stuttering in stressful situations until the stuttering-habit fades. If “seeing is believing”, the proofs that these methods work can be read and seen in texts and videos in the online-posted 200+ Stopped Stuttering Stories on WSSA’s website. Dozens of these ex-stutterers can also be seen in person, live, weekly, in WSSA’s “SAM Meetings”, the world’s only speech club tailored to the needs of PWS. The methods used can also be watched in over 2,000 ofvideo-coaching sessions which are available for viewing on the WSSA website (https://worldstopstuttering.org).

To avoid arguing about the definition of the word “cure”, WSSA’s hundreds of ex-stutterers do not use the word “cure”; instead, they simply say they have "stopped stuttering and havelearned to love to speak." Of the PWSLee has helped stop stuttering in the past eight years, less than 5% have experienced relapses, but he advises that they, too, were able to quickly regain fluency.

WSSA isguided by Lee and a team of his ex-stutterers andnow providesa massive program for people who stutter through its website (https://worldstopstuttering.org/).WSSA’sentire program costs PWS less than one hour of the time of most speech therapists in the Western World. It also offers freememberships to speech professionals hoping to train them to embrace stopping stuttering (rather than accepting it as incurable) in their therapies. WSSA loses money; Lee has been funding the WSSA’s monthly losses himself. Hopefully, in time, WWSA’s low membership fees and tax-deductible donations will cover the costs of WSSA’s techs and staff.

Below are a few of the many reviews/comments about WSSA, its neuroscience methodologies, and its program, which can be found on WSSA’s website and are backed-up by emails:

“Your methods and program are amassing an incredible body of indisputable written and video proofs that stuttering can be stopped.” (an M.D.)

"Your methods CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER." (an M.D.)

"Your book is a medical breakthrough." (an M.D.)

“You are a pioneer in stuttering – a genius” (an M.D.)

““Your methods saved my life, literally. I mean that.” (an attorney, S.A.)

“Forever grateful for your life-saving help.” (a CFO)

I am convinced that The Lovett [Neuroscience] Method is stopping stuttering rapidly and permanently. (a Speech Language Pathologist/SLP)

“I am delighted to learn and apply these unique, priceless strategies.”(an SLP)

“My son has not only overcome his problem, but also has become a very confident and effective communicator.” (an M.D. and mother of a PWSS)

“This approach worked for me.”(a Ph.D., Speech Researcher)

“Your book reads like a fairy tale, too good to be true, but I believe every word of it.” (a PWS, Serbia)

Lee explains that most people who stutter now have the option to live a stutter-free life and that WSSA’s Neuroscience Methodsare leading the way to elimination of stuttering for the first time in history. Leeinvites allto join thischarity, WSSA the world’s only community populated andoperated by EX-stutterers and, of course, to read his books that explain the Neuroscience Method in great detail. Finally, Lee continues to coach as many stutterers, all gratis, as his days allow. The problem is spreading the good news. Every article is a step in the right direction. So, Lee’s final words, to stutterers and speech-anxiety sufferers of all severities, are “Join us now; stop your stuttering, teach yourself to love to speak in all situations, and live the rest of your life seamlessly in the fluent world. We did it; now it’s your turn.”