Executive Psychotherapy for Public Speaking Phobia

Glossophobia, or public speaking phobia afflicts huge numbers of people. Estimates vary, and 70% would be a realistic upper range estimate. Executive Psychotherapy for Public Speaking Phobia can help dramatically.

Public speaking phobia can impair careers, cause physical symptoms, and even lead people to take on less demanding jobs where they can avoid speaking in public. People have died from health conditions exacerbated from the anxiety that the prospect of speaking in public can bring on.

If you don’t suffer glossophobia, it is difficult to imagine the terror it causes. If you do suffer from public speaking phobia, it is almost impossible to understand how others can ever speak in public, let alone do it well.

Executives who suffer glossophobia have to address it, or, choose another career.

If you are a sufferer, you will be pleased to know that almost everyone I have helped has risen to the challenge, and some have gone on to be sought after public speakers.

How long does it take to overcome public speaking phobia?

That depends on the person. For someone, who has suffered in silence for decades, during which time the habit has been deeply ingrained, it can take a little longer than for someone who secures help before their first big public speech.

Typically it takes between one and three sessions, assuming there are no other complicating conditions. Where it takes one session, the transformation is barely believable. A person comes in, rigid with fear and leaves relaxed and comfortable about speaking in public. Where is takes up to three sessions, the same transition takes place, just a little less dramatically.

Finding a credible psychotherapist for public speaking phobia

For most conditions needing therapy, finding someone who has had the challenge you wish to address is not necessary. In some situations it helps immensely. For instance, if you were suffering post natal depression, you would feel better being helped by a female therapist who had overcome it.

The same is the case with public speaking phobia. You just wouldn’t believe in a therapist who hadn’t mastered public speaking. You may be pleased to know that I speak regularly to large audiences, from 10 to 5000, and in a multitude of different contexts. Sometimes for company training events, sometimes on cruise ships for entertainment, sometimes as the keynote speaker at conferences.

If you experience public speaking phobia, your best route forward is part psychotherapy and part coaching. Finding someone who can provide both will help you much more than seeing a therapist who never speaks in public, and who can’t relate to what you experience when faced with an audience.

To make an appointment with Prof Nigel MacLennan call