Tips On How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking & Shyness

Many years ago I was so fearful of speaking in public, I would freeze up in an instant.

My stomach churned, my face became hot, my hands clammy, my voice choking. Similar symptoms occurred when I became a teaching fellow. Imagine 80 sets of eyes staring right on you!

I wish I could tell you that hypnosis (more accurately, hypnotherapy) cured my condition back then, but fortunately it was decades later I learned about the value of this technique and its value in helping others.

Let's look at some of the symptoms of the condition. A person’s symptoms may range from being unable to speak to strangers to a full-blown phobia that completely isolates the sufferer psychologically or even physically (as in the case of an agoraphobic).

Everyday fear of public speaking and being shy contains three related elements:

- physiological signs such as blushing
- negative thoughts such as “everyone is looking at me”
- bad feelings such as shame, anxiety and loneliness.

These elements often result in avoidance behavior.

This behavior frequently causes non-shy people to label the shy person as “stuck up” or “aloof” thus completing the self-defeating circle and reinforcing the shyness.

What are some of the causes of this type of behavior. A person may be shy because of a traumatic experience, family background or culture. Extreme shyness may be environmentally driven.

Lack of experience in social situations, perceived isolation experiences as a child in a home or community can contribute to shyness. Low self-esteem can arise from these life experiences can leave you vulnerable to shyness as an adult.

How can we cope with this shyness? Unfortunately, the most common way of coping is avoidance. Avoidance of places and people who arouse the anxiety within a person that causes them to feel shy.

Anxiety can be most evident when we are asked to speak in public. Yikes!

Coping with that (very common) form of shyness requires changing your thoughts and to let go of the terrifying fear of rejection.

How can Hypnosis help me through this issue? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for shyness involves exposure to the fear-inducing person or place. Thus you eventually became immune to shyness when speaking in front of people.

Sometimes, drugs are prescribed for some forms of shyness, especially those which include high levels of anxiety. However, reducing the anxiety with drugs only acts as for the moment, with no long term help.

Clearly, the safest route to cure shyness is the hypnotic route. There are two main ways hypnosis is used to overcome shyness: suggestive and analytical. Let's see how these work.

This involves you, while in hypnosis, imagining yourself calm, confident and at ease in situations that previously had you feeling shy.

Coupled with powerful post-hypnotic suggestions this approach can result in a swift disappearance of the discomfort of shyness and fear.

Positive Suggestion Hypnosis often also incorporates techniques from different aspects of psychology.

The second way of using hypnosis is to get to the root cause(s) of your shyness. And then, of course, dealing with them. While the fact of you having no siblings, or coming from another culture or being ignored as a child for instance, cannot be changed, your perceptions and therefore your thoughts, behavior and feelings can.

This approach takes an investment of time and funds. Hypnotherapy as the primary approach can be an efficient way to manage these feelings. Isn't it better to feel good? I would say it's so. 

Benefits of Hypnosis

Hypnosis has countless uses in psychotherapy, psychiatry and various medical specialties. The use of hypnotic techniques by the helping professions has increased steadily in recent years, because hypnosis is gaining widespread acceptance as a safe, reliable, effective and comfortable alternative or adjunct to other, more traditional methods. In the modern climate of skyrocketing health care costs, hypnosis is also proving invaluable as an aid in speeding recovery from physical and mental problems.

It finally earned formal recognition as a valuable tool in health care in 1958, when the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association recommended that instruction in hypnosis be included in medical school curricula. Hypnosis was similarly embraced several years later by the American Psychological Association. Thousands of psychologists, dentists, and physicians in various specialties now have thorough training in hypnotic methods within their specialty areas. Professional organizations in clinical hypnosis provide extensive training and continuing education in hypnosis, and provide their members with specific ethical guidelines for the professional use of hypnosis.

WHAT HYPNOSIS CAN DO FOR YOU

There are many good reasons to seek the services of medical professionals or psychotherapists skilled in the use of hypnosis. In psychotherapy, hypnotic techniques are effective in speeding the process of therapy. Hypnosis is used effectively to facilitate patients' understanding of themselves or their problems, extinguish unfortunate habits, reduce anxiety and fears, and develop a new and more adaptive outlook.

In medicine and health psychology, hypnosis is used to effectively treat such conditions as irritable bowel syndrome, help manage and reduce pain and discomfort associated with medical procedures (e.g., dental surgery), where anesthesia cannot be used effectively.

It is also used to treat chronic pain and psychosomatic problems and counter unhealthy habits that contribute to illness, such as smoking and binge eating.

Selecting A Qualified Hypnotherapist

As in choosing any health care professional, care should be exercised in selecting a hypnotherapist. Hypnosis and the use of hypnotic therapies are not regulated in most states, and hypnotherapists are, in most cases, not state licensed.

Lay hypnotists are people who are trained in hypnosis but lack medical, psychological, dental or other professional health care training. A lay hypnotist may be certified and claim to have received 200 or more hours of training, but licensed health care professionals typically have seven to nine years of university coursework, plus additional supervised training in internship and residency programs.

Their hypnosis training is in addition to their social work, medical, psychological, or dental training. Careful questioning can help you avoid a lay hypnotist who may engage in fraudulent or unethical practices. Please note a C.ht is not a NY State approved professional license.

Ask if the person is licensed (not certified) in their field by the state. If they are not legitimately licensed, they probably lack the education required for licensure. Find out what their degree is in. If it is in hypnosis or hypnotherapy, rather than a state-recognized health care profession, the person is a lay hypnotist.

Check for membership in the American Psychotherapy Association, as well as membership in the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, the American Dental Association. Contact a state or local licensing component section to see if the person is reputable.

If you have doubts about their qualifications, keep looking.