stammering can be cured by hypnotic suggestion. If you could get me
in the hypnotic state and suggest to me repeatedly that from
thenceforth I would have easy fluent speech, I feel absolutely
certain that such would be the case."

Or an engineer writes to me:

"At times I stammer very badly. In an ordinary conversation it is
scarcely perceptible, but it is almost impossible for me to make an
explanation or relate an incident or tell an anecdote. I began to
stammer when I was about seven years of age--I am twenty-nine
now--and continued until I was seventeen, when I broke myself of it
by reading aloud. It came back on me about a year ago, at which
time I was laboring under a very severe nervous strain on account
of business matters. I have since tried to break myself of it in
the way that I did at first, reading aloud, but have been unable to
do so. Can it be cured by hypnotic treatment or suggestion? Can any
hypnotist of ordinary ability do it?"

I should affirm this question, which is one of the most frequent put to
the psychotherapist. And yet, if I myself have entirely given up the
cure of stammerers in recent years, it was not only because there was
little chance to learn anything new scientifically from it but also
because it was ultimately disappointing, as the severe cases cannot be
cured entirely. Every hypnotist can quickly secure a strong improvement.
In even new cases I found an almost surprising improvement in the first
two weeks, an improvement which stirs up the most vivid hopes of the
sufferers. Then the improvement becomes slower and finally it stops
before a complete cure is reached. The patient notices it and it easily
works back on his emotion and thus begins again to disturb the speech,
unless a very careful continuous counter-suggestion is given. Slight
disturbances, to be sure, can be removed entirely. The essential point
will always be to suggest to the stammerer the full belief that he is
able to speak every word and that he is able to speak it in every
situation. But where there is a limit for improvement, we must take for
granted that the disturbing fear is only superadded to an organic
trouble. In such cases, probably the inability of certain nervous paths
was primarily irreparable. These inabilities then became the source of
discomfort and of fear and this fear added greatly to the disturbance.
Hypnotism then quick