Jacquelyn Joyce Revere On Her Decision To Livestream Her Stuttering Therapy Sessions
June 24, 2020
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Jacquelyn Joyce Revere is a client at AIS who has recently been live-streaming her stuttering therapy sessions on Youtube. We asked Jacquelyn why she was willing to share such a personal experience publicly. Read more to learn about Jacquelyn's motivation to take this risk, her vision for the future, and how this experience has helped her and many others along the way.
I'm Jacquelyn Joyce Revere. I'm a writer and I'm working on my first project for TV, which is exciting. I'm also a life long stutterer and very invested in helping other people overcome their fear of stuttering because that is what kept me stagnant for so long.
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I listen to the viewers and I try to adapt to both their needs and mine. This last session I made it a point to set an intention for the hour that Dr. Heather Grossman and I spoke. We decided which speech tool would be best for me to practice throughout the hour and that seemed to be beneficial for others and for myself.
I often get comments on the video from people who have never taken therapy before, saying that it helps give them a baseline understanding of how to approach their own stutter. I also have a Q and A portion at the end of each video where people who watch can ask questions. I especially love the comments from younger people who say they are going to share this video with their parents or siblings. Others comment that they will share it with their spouse so that they have a better understanding of the experience of the stutterer. I like that it's giving stutterers a way to be proactive about educating the people in their lives.
Well, the plan is to continue working on desensitization. These live sessions took a huge leap of faith on my part. Therapy is a very personal experience, and I was hesitant to share them at first. However, I am also moving into a field career-wise that requires this level of desensitization. So, the goal it to continue climbing up my fear hierarchy, sometimes on camera and sometimes not.
You can watch a sample of Jacqueline and Heather's session here. If you enjoyed this video, watch other AIS clients challenge themselves to speak in places and topics outside their comfort zone. Here is Rahima Dosani performing spoken word poetry at AIS's gala, Taylor Dougherty recognizing the importance of her own voice, and Benjamin Schussheim on why stuttering is the best thing that ever happened to him.
--The American Institute for Stuttering is a leading non-profit organization whose primary mission is to provide universally affordable, state-of-the-art speech therapy to people of all ages who stutter, guidance to their families, and much-needed clinical training to speech professionals wishing to gain expertise in stuttering. Offices are located in New York, NY and Atlanta, GA, and services are also available Online. Our mission extends to advancing public and scholarly understanding of this often misunderstood disorder.
