How Therapy Can Help You Overcome The Fear Of Public Speaking

It’s been said that speaking in public ranks way up there on the fear scale along with fear of dying. As social and career demands can put people in a position where they have to speak in public, more and more people are turning to therapy to help conquer their fear of public speaking.

Usually the first thing a therapist will ask is for the person to describe what it feels like when they go to speak in public. Often they will relate how they get dizzy, butterflies in their stomach, they can break out in a sweat and feel nauseous.

Public speaking isn’t something most people do on a regular basis. But occasions such as where the best man has to get up and give a speech at a wedding, or the new employee has to give a presentation can send people into a tail-spin of fear.

So what can you do to get over this fear of public speaking?

You may have come across the odd nugget of wisdom such as imagining the people sitting in front of you are not wearing any clothes. That may work for some people, but more often than not it won’t.

What a therapist will do is help you to uncover the root cause of the problem – why you have this fear and where it came from. And by finding the root cause of the problem, the therapist can then work with you to find a solution to the problem.

Hypnotherapy can be quite a useful tool for the therapist to use to access the subconscious mind to discover where the fear has come from.

One example that comes to mind is that of a guy called John. When John was in primary school he had a mild stutter. His teacher would demand that John stand up and read aloud on front of the whole class. John’s stutter would get much worse and he came to dread these reading sessions on front of his teacher and the whole class. During therapy John was able to address this trauma from the perspective of an adult, and he learnt how to speak with confidence in any social situation.

Don’t allow a fear of public speaking prevent you from being able to speak up in front of groups, whether you need to speak to groups to further your career, or to give that memorable speech as the best man. Find a reputable therapist skilled in treating the fear of public speaking and sort out this problem for good.

Ian Epstein has been a counsellor and therapist for 16 Years. To find out how therapy can help you get over the fear of public speaking and other issues go to https://www.confidentialcounselling.ie