When more presenting, training, and great tips for mastering anxiety sometimes just don’t help at all………

As a member of the LinkedIn Public Speakers Network, I have been involved in discussions about ways to handle public speaking anxiety.  It’s important to note that even professional speakers have to deal with anxiety.  Two strong themes emerge in this discussion that help professional speakers to succeed in their work:  1- thorough preparation 2- enthusiasm or passion for the topic.  I add below today’s comments to the group:

Now that the discussion is including those who have severe anxiety, which is not resolved by a lot of presenting, various performance enhancement techniques and so forth, these are my clients. In addition to the many techniques we have collectively created, learned, encountered, it is necessary to get to the part of the brain which drives primitive reactions whose purpose is to protect us from threats to our physical safety. We all know about “fight/flight” and maybe as well about “freeze and appease.” Those reactions occur in the limbic system – a part of our brain which is geared to react and act, not think – and will not integrate information coming from our thinking brain, the cortex. Its power to help humans survive also turns off the cortex so thinking won’t interfere with survival, which is why so many people report not being able to think or remember what they are supposed to say. This reaction in a region below the cortex is why so many sufferers have tried so many “higher brain” solutions that never work. At some point in time, fear of public speaking took its place on the list of life threatening forces, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it doesn’t take a lot to threaten, humiliate or tear down a child’s confidence and sense of safety. What needs to happen to undo this irrational connection is to discover the cause(s) earlier in life and use good trauma treatment to allow these fears, essentially, to be integrated into our higher cortex where they will no longer feel upsetting. Since 1995, I have primarily used EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) a proven well researched method that has become world famous for its success in treating the aftermath of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, to diminish and cure fear of public speaking. I also use other trauma techniques including Sensorimotor Therapy and some of the energy therapies such as TFT and EFT, the last of which I find less effective with crippling fear. This process is interwoven with performance enhancement techniques and cognitive therapy methods, and can be accomplished in as little as 8 hours, but more commonly in a series of weekly sessions lasting more than 4 months. The length of time depends on the client’s characteristic way of dealing with feelings, the amount of additional trauma which may have occurred in childhood, and the willingness to give up their perfectionism, and sometimes also their need to appear unassailable to the world.

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