I feel badly about having a stutter, I don’t want to face the possibility of being given an additional label of having a mental disorder. Could you comment?

Increasingly mental disorders are losing their stigma. It is now realised that as many as one third of the population suffers from a mental disorder of some kind during their lives. In any case a personal dislike of the term mental disorder, or syndrome, should not be a reason for preventing use of these words if they provide the most accurate description. The other issue is that it is not until a mental disorder is acknowledged that it is possible to summon the support needed to affect change. Therapy for a mental disorder like Social Anxiety Disorder already exists. Acknowledgement of the mental state opens the door for effective therapy. Besides what I have just said, stuttering itself is regarded as a mental disorder by many people (especially after the showing of the film “The King’s Speech”). It is therefore futile for people who stutter to be worried about how the label Stuttered Speech Syndrome would provide further negative connotations.