The stuttering awareness day is a highly welcomed opportunity for me to describe the elements of this approach and to make clear which harmful and devastating effects this way of treating persons who stutter can have. The concept of personal responsibility cannot be defined without reference to a complex philosophical and cultural context. These philosophers have inspired me but my own ideas are much simpler and directly related to the belief system implied in JW's therapy. In order to make someone responsible for his behavior you have to interpret his behavior as an action, i.e., you interpret the other's behavior in the light of an interpretational scheme. Ability to speak fluently or disfluently.
Responsibility implies that the person is able to perform either of alternative actions.
The first assumption implied in JW's therapy is that Bob Wilson is able to speak fluently as well as to stutter. Fluent and disfluent speech as a matter of choice. From the first assumption follows that Bob Wilson has some reasons to prefer to stutter instead of speaking fluently. JW imputed that Bob Wilson would have been able to speak fluently if he himself were in danger of being drowned. There were also some other indications in the film suggesting that it could have been advantageous for Bob to stutter.