NLP, Confidence and Hypnosis for Public Speaking

                By Ian Geddes and Susan Chan

We have worked with many clients who have a real fear and phobia about speaking in public. Such behaviour is learned. For example, the Head Teacher who dreads speaking to groups of parents, staff or even children. For many people a public performance, such as a presentation at work, at university, an interview or even a ‘vote of thanks’, can leave an otherwise confident person  reduced to a stammering, sweaty shadow! Not only does the speaker crawl with embarrassment, so does the audience. As Goffman would say, it is a ‘failed performance’. As NLP practitioners and clinical hypnotists, we need not concern ourselves too much with the precipitating cause.

What we need to establish is how the person feels and thinks when giving that performance. Does it affect your stomach, so you feel your skin becoming clammy, do you hear a voice telling you that you are rubbish, can you only visualise failure? Your brain has established a pattern that inevitably will result in failure. We use, what is referred to as ‘modern psychological techniques’ to alter the neurological pathway. We change your state of mind using a technique called NLP Meta Modelling. It works by reversing the neurological pathway. In a state of deep relaxation, we work with you and alter your state of mind when you are giving that public performance.  You need to practise this and make sure that it is reinforced and firmly embedded. It is possible to use our MP3 downloads to do this.