Imagine you are the second son of the King of England but have no desire to be king. Shortly after your father's death, your older brother abdicates the throne, forcing you into your greatest nightmare. You are now king. Your country is about to enter World War II, and you are pitted against Adolf Hitler who can sway millions with his speech. Yet, you have stuttered and stammered since early childhood despite the best attempts of medical science to cure you. In desperation, you put your trust in an eccentric actor turned speech therapist. He coaches you through one speech after another and helps guide you and your country through the horrors of the Second World War.
This story would make a great triumph-over-all-odds fictional novel, except that it is true and now the subject of an extraordinary movie, The King's Speech. King George VI had an "incurable" stutter, but he learned to speak through the teachings of the unconventional Lionel Logue. What was Logue's secret? Was it the tricks he taught King George, such as the use of pauses and exhalations to force out the difficult words? Was it because Logue helped the king recognize possible psychological and physiological roots of his stuttering? Was it Logue's sense of humor? Was it because Logue broke down the almost impenetrable barriers between commoner and king?
Toward the end of the movie, as King George VI (played by Colin Firth) prepares to speak to the nation about the impending war, Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush) tells the king, "Forget everything else, and just say it to me." This, to me, was the most pivotal point of the film; it captured the deep friendship and trust that had developed between the king and his therapist. That kind of trust is not just important to rehabilitation - it is critical.
I was deeply moved by The King's Speech in part because it mirrored my own experiences, not with stuttering but with crossed eyes. My first visit to my optometrist's office, after a lifetime of seeing cross-eyed, brought back all those feelings of failure and humiliation that went along with my eyes and my vision. Yet, I found myself in an office where I could describe what I saw and even risk new visual challenges without feeling like a fool. I embarked on a program of optometric vision therapy that taught me how to coordinate my eyes and see in 3D - therapy made successful because of the deep trust and communication that developed between me, my optometrist, and her therapists.
How did David Seidler, the screenwriter for The King's Speech, know about this? How could he imagine the baggage that accumulates after a lifetime of stuttering or being cross-eyed or a host of other indignities? How did he know about the importance of the relationship between patient and therapist? The answer is straightforward and clear-cut. David Seidler stuttered badly when he was a boy. When telling the king's story, he was also telling his own.
