Fear of Public Speaking

A woman in her late 40's came to see me after a change in her professional life resulted in her being required to give a series of presentations and speeches.  My client has an outgoing and confident personality and felt very comfortable chairing meetings and expressing her opinions in group settings.  However, speaking in public left her feeling physically nauseous and like "a rabbit caught in the headlights".  She hated public speaking with a passion.

During the initial treatment it became clear that an incident at school, where she was asked to read to the whole class, had left her feeling that she would never be any good at public speaking.  Using various techniques it was possible to allow the client to put this incident in perspective and resolve it.

A week after the initial treatment she gave a talk to approximately 200 people. Although she still felt nervous, she did not feel sick and her anxiety was reduced to a manageable level.

The client returned four months later when she was asked to co-host a conference, facilitate a workshop and give an after dinner speech.  During the next two treatments we addressed issues around her ability to remember and use humour in her speech.  We also worked on her tendency to compare herself unfavourably with professional public speakers.  The outcome of these two treatments was the development of an action plan and identification of her own personal style which helped improve her confidence.

A few days after the last treatment she successfully delivered her first after dinner speech at an industry conference.  She then went on to accept to become the president of a professional body and give a speech to over 2,000 fellow professionals.