Mindfulness & Stuttering: Using Eastern Strategies to Speak with Greater Ease (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478385110)

Ellen-Marie Silverman, Ph.D., Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, was Director of the Fluency Clinic at Marquette University. She holds the Ph.D. in speech pathology from the University of Iowa and was a post-doctoral fellow in developmental psycholinguistics at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She later trained as a transactional analysis counselor. Dr Silverman, a speech pathologist for more than 40 years, has been a member of several university faculties. More recently, she has been CEO of TSS, Inc., a healthcare staffing support service company she founded. Dr. Silverman has been practicing shamatha-vipassana mindfulness meditation since 1996. In 2003, she recognized that the Tibetan Buddhist concept of shenpa, the sense we all have of feeling hooked and our habituated desire to flee the experience, incisively described the development and persistence of her own stuttering problem and those of many clients she has known. Incorporating shenpa work into her shamatha-vipassana meditation practice along with the mindfulness practices of maitri, lojong, tonglen, and the recitation of gathas then applying these strategies to her own stuttering problem has helped her speak with increasing ease, confidence, and satisfaction. Dr. Silverman has presented nationally and internationally to colleagues and students about the nature, prevention, and treatment of stuttering problems. She has shared her experience applying mindfulness to stuttering at several International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conferences for people who have stuttering problems and for professionals, students-in-training, and people interested in stuttering. The recipient of research awards, Dr. Silverman has published extensively in peer-reviewed publications, contributed chapters to textbooks, and authored a textbook on clinical practice, Mind Matters. She authored The Jason Loring Trilogy which depicts a life lived and lived with a stuttering problem.