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From: Woody Starkweather
Date: 10/10/01
Time: 6:47:17 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.228.153
As a person who has sometimes held opinions that were a little out of the mainstream, I share your frustration with the scientific establishment. The conservatism that characterizes science is both its strength and its weakness. When I gave a paper in the early 90's suggesting that perhaps the question of therapy efficacy was too complex for science to answer, the reaction, at least of some, astonished me. I was quickly marginalized and accused of something like traitorous behavior. Yet, in my opinion, I had done something very important in science: noting that a particular question may not be a scientific one.
Anyway, I enjoyed your paper here, and I have always enjoyed your research. Your paper on stuttering severity during the menstrual cycle has always been standard reading in my graduate course. Also, I might add that because of that paper, I routinely ask female stutterers about the severity of their stuttering during their menstrual cycle. When they report cyclic fluctuations, and explore the changes in feelings that they have during their cycles, it is usually a useful aspect of treatment. I would say, as you indicated, that not all women are more anxious during their periods, many have other kinds of emotional variations, and of course, some have few emotional variations, while a few have the emotional variations but with little effect on their fluency.
I wonder if you have read Anne Wilson Shaef's book Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science? I found it interesting in that it paralleled my own development as a clinical scientist, at least to a point.
Woody