Lisa Braithwaite, speech coach and author of the Speak Schmeak public speaking blog commented on my last post and referenced a terrific letter to the editor, which she posted in her blog back in 2007:
The letter, written by Ed Barks, discussed some potential pitfalls of the speaking advice offered in the Post's article about the Stagefright Survival School. Ed offered this alternative:
Those who hope to overcome their fears must attack them at the root. The cause may be stage fright. Or it may be something altogether different, such as shyness, insecurity, uncertainty about one's topic, fear of being judged, lack of passion or another cause.
In other words, having a speaker hold on to a microphone, prescribing beta-blockers, etc treats the symptoms of stagefright - but not the cause. By just treating the symptoms, speakers may learn how to cope with stagefright, but they will never overcome it.
For many people, stagefright is a learned response that comes from a traumatic performance experience in childhood. (e.g. piano recital, school play, class presentation...) Every time the person is asked to speak, he returns to the childhood trauma.
At Green Room Speakers, clients learn how to overcome stagefright first by identifying the root causes. Then we help clients break the pattern of negative association, by helping them connect speaking in public with past experiences of strength, calm, and presence.
From the Green Room: Have Stagefright? Don't fear. You can do more than just learn to cope with it. By getting the root of the anxiety, you can learn to overcome - and actually begin to enjoy speaking in public.
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6 comments:
Sure it's useful to identify the root cause of stage fright especially since, as you suggest,it can have different causes on different occasions. But sometimes effective coping techniques (i.e. behavior modification)can actually extinguish the original problematic impulse. An analogy: during the civil rights movement, MLK and other leaders focused on eliminating racist BEHAVIORS (discriminatatory acts in schools, buses, restaurants, etc) rather than on psychoanlyzing individuals for the root causes of their prejudice. Over time, as those legally & morally unacceptable behaviors disappeared, so too did the underlying racist impulse even without any internal recognition of its root cause.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and perceptive comment. The difference between the civil rights example and stagefright is that in the case of racism the "root cause" has a much longer history. While finding ways to cope is important, I still think it is difficult to fully overcome stagefright if the connection is not made to the original trigger.
I'm really interested to know how you identify the root causes of stage fright with your clients. Do you sit down and reflect back on past experiences? Are the traumatic experiences always directly related to public speaking or is the root cause of stage fright sometimes less obvious?
That is a great question. I do sit and reflect on past performance related experiences - while of course making it clear that I am not a counselor. I would say that from what I know - a root cause is more often than not a bad experience with performance - but there can be other causes as well.
That is a great question. I do sit and reflect on past performance related experiences - while of course making it clear that I am not a counselor. I would say that from what I know - a root cause is more often than not a bad experience with performance - but there can be other causes as well.
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