Speech Anxiety: Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking
By John Robert Colombo
This article addresses these questions about speech anxiety and the fear of public speaking.
1.Why do we fear public speaking?
2. Is speech anxiety normal?
3. What can we do to face our public speaking fear and speech anxiety?
Fear of Public Speaking or Speech anxiety is a general term for the sense of fear or panic that overtakes a person when he or she is called upon to speak or otherwise perform in public. There are other ways to refer to it: anxiousness, nervousness, "the jitters," stage fright, fear of public speaking, performance anxiety, etc. It usually strikes when someone has to deliver a presentation before a group of people. It makes little difference whether the audience is large or small, composed of familiar or unfamiliar faces. Psychologists consider speech anxiety to be a special case of what is commonly known as shyness.
What do psychologists: Philip G. Zimbardo, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler say about speech anxiety - the fear of public speaking?
George Torok
Executive Speech Coach
2 comments:
An interesting fact I learnt about public speaking George, is that naturally we are born with only two fears and a fear of public speaking isn't one of them. If this is the case then the fear of public speaking can be learnt and unlearnt through practice . . .
Hi Glass,
That's interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I'm curious. What are the two natural fears and what reference can you site as the source.
That could be helpful to share.
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