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Hypnosis Berlin

Hypnosis for Speech Anxiety
Speak Freely in Front of Others

A large percentage of our clients come to the hypnosis practice with the goal of overcoming or curing inhibitions and fears about speaking. They want to get rid of the fear of speaking in front of groups. For some, the fear relates to an audience, a public area at work, for others it relates to a school class or a study course. Even with the first hypnosis session, important changes can be initiated. Self-awareness and confidence in one's own abilities increase and this becomes noticeable in one's behavior with other people, when speaking in front of groups, and when giving presentations. Learn more about how hypnosis can help with speech anxiety and how hypnosis can also support you in overcoming fears of speaking in front of others.
Hypnosis for Speech Anxiety - Speak Freely in Front of Others
Image: Hypnosis for Speech Anxiety - Speak Freely in Front of Others

Speech Anxiety Symptoms

How to recognize the symptoms of glossophobia or speech anxiety

The fear of speaking in front of a group of people is more widespread than many think. While speech anxiety is considered a disorder of normal speech, there is also the exaggerated and inappropriate form of speech anxiety, whose technical term is almost unknown: logophobia. Affected people often describe panic months and weeks before a speaking appointment. Medication can provide relief and calm for a short moment, but these only act selectively and do not improve the feelings of anxiety in the long term. The anxiety can relate to a lecture, but also to an exam, presentation or job application. During the dreaded situation, sufferers may even experience heart palpitations and panic. They sweat and tremble, have wet hands, stomach cramps and physical shaking. There may be stuttering, complete panic to a total blackout.

Speech anxiety manifests itself in people through different symptoms and reactions on a physical and psychological level:

Physical Symptoms
There are usually physical symptoms such as sweaty palms, racing heart, palpitations, trembling, headaches, tension, cramping, dizziness, nausea, shallow breathing, stomach and intestinal cramps, abdominal pain, sweating, intense tension and nervousness. The body reacts with anxiety. This anxiety can become physically apparent long before a dreaded situation such as a lecture, exam or public appearance, and anxiety attacks can escalate to panic attacks, which can be triggered simply by thoughts of the dreaded situation long before the appointment. More about hypnosis for panic attacks.
Psychological Symptoms
Psychologically, speech anxiety manifests itself in negative thoughts, fear of embarrassment and being laughed at, reduced ability to concentrate, and fear of being negatively evaluated. Affected persons often feel shame and have the feeling of not being good enough. Speech anxiety often manifests in front of groups combined with other fears, such as fear of being at the mercy of others or losing control. Social phobia may also play a role. Affected people often describe a paralyzing feeling and often feel helpless and constricted in their emotional life in advance of a certain situation.

Fear of speaking in front of others - technical term: glossophobia

Logophobia is the psychological and medical term for fear of speaking. The fear of speaking in front of a group is one of the social phobias and is recognized as a disease. Affected individuals describe a fear of presenting, being observed, judged, or even negatively evaluated, or of being ridiculed or embarrassed. A cycle develops: The understandable desire to make up for it or at least not to be noticed negatively, unconsciously allows the pressure to increase further and can lead to complete speechlessness and blackout.
Logophobia is also associated or equated in the German-speaking world with the following terms:
  • Presentation anxiety
  • Speech anxiety
  • Speech inhibition
  • Speech phobia
  • Audience anxiety
  • Communication apprehension
  • Stage fright
  • Performance anxiety
  • Communication anxiety
  • Interpersonal anxiety
  • Social anxiety
  • Sozialangst
In logophobia, however, the fear of speaking and talking is much stronger than in stage fright, which all people know in one form or another. Often, experiential fears and behavioral patterns have formed as a result of events in the past that can have an impact well into adulthood.

Stage fright and performance anxiety

Stage fright is first of all a completely normal reaction. Almost all people experience it. It doesn't matter if you are a famous actor or an employee who has to give a presentation. As soon as we perform in public, the body releases stress hormones, including adrenaline in particular. It makes us alert, vigilant and able to act. All of these are initially desirable symptoms that help us to get our "appearance" over the stage well. In some people, however, the body "overdoes it" with the adrenaline. Then fear and the resulting "flight impulse" are added to the desired attention. This causes us to sweat, to want to run away and sometimes even to experience the dreaded "blackout". Now our stage fright does exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do. The more often we experience this reaction, the more likely it is to occur the next time. And - what's worse - it gets more intense with each time. If you too suffer from this unhealthy form of stage fright, then you will certainly try to avoid the situations that cause you stage fright. In meetings you keep silent, you don't sign up for special tasks because you fear having to present your results to a large group. At your children's parent-teacher conferences, at club meetings, or with friends, you are afraid to speak your mind for fear that your voice will shake or you will break out in a sweat.

Speech anxiety in children

Fear of speaking in front of groups usually develops in childhood. But while adults with logophobia have many ways to avoid it, children face anxiety-provoking situations at school every day. Logophobia can start as early as children in school: Fear of reading text aloud in class, giving presentations, or completing a math assignment in front of the class lead to increased stress and tension for children and adolescents with speech and language anxiety. School performance often suffers and those affected suffer from the fear of being judged, laughed at or not being good enough. Quite often, anxiety in children manifests itself in school anxiety. If your child suffers from it, the anxiety can be reflected in behavior or show psychosomatically through physical complaints. Children and adolescents often do not speak or label their feelings as fear of groups, but show it through other channels. If you are concerned that your child may be affected, talk to me about it! Learn more about school anxiety treatment with hypnosis here. I am also happy to advise you by phone and, as a trained educator, I can also work very confidently with your child or teenager in my practice. Read more about child hypnosis in my Berlin practice here.

Hypnosis for speech and presentation anxiety

Hypnosis helps to activate your resources and strengthen your strengths. Many clients are skeptical at first, because much in the field of hypnosis is mixed on television and the Internet: Show hypnosis, which is shown on TV and on stages, has little to do with the hypnosis that is used in the medical and clinical field. This often creates the image in the general population that people in hypnosis are will-less or can't remember anything. I can very well understand that this causes fear. However, this fear is unfounded. After hypnosis, many people are very happy and glad to have had this experience for themselves and their lives. Fears of showing yourself in front of other people and the feeling of not being good enough change and become less, also the feeling of self-efficacy and self-control for your own life and especially in speech situations increase. Hypnosis can help you gain self-awareness and self-determination that will give you confidence in situations that used to scare you.

Speech anxiety self test

Do I suffer from glossophobia?

The following questions may be initial clues as to whether you suffer from logophobia / speech and language anxiety:
  • 1

    Do you suffer from loss of appetite, increased appetite, sleep disturbances, restlessness, anxiety or tension before a presentation?
  • 2

    Do you have anxiety, difficulty concentrating, or feelings of trepidation when you are asked to speak in front of a large group?
  • 3

    Does anxiety increase when you draw complete attention to yourself or are the center of attention?
  • 4

    Are you afraid to talk on the phone while other people are in the room listening to you?
  • 5

    Does your anxiety show itself with racing heart, blushing, sweating, stuttering, stomach cramps, and trembling?
  • 6

    Do you feel insecure, shy, or afraid of not being enough and embarrassing yourself?
  • 7

    Are you afraid of formulating sentences, not being able to speak them fluently, and failing?
  • 8

    Do you cancel appointments on short notice because the fear is too great to face the situation?
If you can answer yes to any of these questions and feel restricted in your daily life and living, you should seek medical or therapeutic advice. You may have a fear of speaking. Please note that questions are always asked broadly, so it is possible that even people who are not affected by a speech phobia will get a positive result. Not everyone who gets excited before a presentation suffers from speech anxiety.

Speech anxiety facts

Where and when does speech anxiety occur?

Speech anxiety is one of the most common phobias and fears in the population. Sufferers often limit themselves in their lives professionally and/or privately, accept excuses and avoid professional and private situations in which they have to speak, which can result in many career and professional opportunities being missed.
The fear of saying the wrong thing - The fear of speaking in public or in front of an audience does not mean that the fear only arises when there is a packed room of people. For people with logophobia, situations at private family gatherings, conferences, meetings or presentations at work can trigger strong feelings of anxiety. Parents' evenings, club meetings or presentations at school or college present real psychological and physical challenges.

Anxious situations in speech anxiety and speech anxiety:
  • Making a speech at a private family party
  • Conference, meeting, meeting or presentation in job and profession
  • Fear of online business meetings via Zoom or Skype
  • Presenting in front of clients
  • Oral exams, questioning situations
  • Parents' evenings or club meetings
  • Presentation at university
  • Presentations at school and university, presenting teamwork or project work
  • Speaking in front of an audience in public
  • Fear of reading aloud at school or solving tasks on the blackboard
  • Fear of appearances and small and larger rounds of introductions

41% of the population are afraid to speak in public

It is not uncommon for the time before a presentation in front of colleagues to be endured long beforehand under great tension, and the fear of failing in a situation and not finding the right words increases. For those affected, a panic can develop that affects the entire body and has a paralyzing effect on the body and speech. It is not uncommon for people to cancel presentations or meetings or even resort to performance-enhancing substances (brain doping) to combat nervousness, or more precisely, stage fright.
41 %
are afraid to speak publicly.
52 %
of the students surveyed said they had taken performance-enhancing substances to combat nervousness / stage fright.
45 %
of the students surveyed stated that they had taken performance-enhancing substances to combat nervousness / stage fright.

Speech anxiety causes

Causes of speech and public speaking anxiety, fear of presenting.

Common causes and reasons in speech anxiety can include ideas and feelings of being exposed, fears such as shame, shyness, and social inhibition. Speech anxiety (logophobia) is related to social phobia, which refers to fear in social situations. Affected individuals fear being the center of attention and are afraid of behaving embarrassingly. Speech anxiety and is among the specific phobias. People with speech anxiety and stage fright often respond very well to hypnotherapy, which can lead to a noticeable reduction in anxiety and improvement in their own physical sensations when speaking (in front of groups).

Speech anxiety consequences

What consequences can speech anxiety have?

Speech anxiety and fear of speaking belong to the social fears / phobias and can be treated well with hypnosis. The consequences of speech anxiety can be serious: social withdrawal, professional disadvantages and even the end of the career ladder. Speech fear blocks concerning in the private and vocational life, but it does not have to come so far.
Again and again, sufferers describe a paralyzing feeling of rigid immobility, inner restlessness, worrying thoughts in view of the next speech, fear of failure, the fear of the appointment increases, so that many sufferers avoid and use more and more avoidance strategies. Avoidance strategies can be fatal, as they have a tendency to spread to other areas of life and become chronic.
Speech anxiety can manifest itself in varying degrees of intensity and can relate to speaking in front of a group in the public sphere as well as to professional life, but can also generalize alongside this. Affected individuals may also experience anxiety in small informal groups such as family or friends, which is evident in highly speech-anxious individuals.

Summarize the consequences of speech anxiety as follows:
  • Decreasing self-confidence due to repeatedly experienced fearful situations.
  • Increasing pressure of suffering due to expansion of fears also to private areas.
  • Increased feelings of helplessness and insecurity can manifest themselves in private and professional life: psychosocial, somatic and economic consequences.
  • Problems in the professional environment due to avoidance of set tasks such as mettings or lectures up to loss of work.
  • Increased risk through "self-therapy or self-medication".

Speech anxiety and secondary conditions

Speech anxiety, if untreated, often manifests itself in combination with other fears. It can often be observed that the fear of speaking in front of other people continues to expand and consolidates as social phobia. Affected individuals begin to avoid situations in which they have experienced an anxiety attack more and more, so as not to expose themselves to the experience. Shame and the feeling of not being good enough can take. Depressive moods due to the prolonged duration can also burden sufferers.

Logophobia or stage fright?

Speech anxiety and "normal" excitement before appearances.

So, up to 41% of all people suffer from the fear of speaking in front of presentation or others, a group or in or public, while the eyes are on their own person. This fear of speaking can increase to the point of panic. Stage fright, on the other hand, is completely normal during performances and accompanies even skilled speakers during their presentations. For many people, it takes an overcoming to say something in front of a group of people or to be the center of attention. The fear of speaking in public or in front of an audience does not mean that the fear only arises when there is a packed room of people. For people with logophobia, situations at private family gatherings, conferences, meetings, or presentations at work can trigger strong feelings of anxiety. Parents' evenings, club meetings or presentations at school or university present real psychological and physical challenges.

Is speech anxiety a disease or not?

As already mentioned, there is a distinction between speech anxiety and fear of speaking and the so-called logophobia. While speech anxiety is a disorder of speaking, i.e. a certain fear of speaking and presenting, lecturing, the technical term logophobia refers to an independent disorder. This disorder refers to a pathological fear of speaking. Logophobia belongs to the social phobias and shows a strong fear reaction with avoidance behavior and tendencies to escape. These tendencies and fear reactions can vary in severity. Often, affected individuals try to avoid or evade situations so that the feeling of fear does not occur. Significantly more people suffer from this disorder than many believe. Mild speech anxiety, as well as the more severe form, can be treated and therapized. Symptoms include excessive speech tonality, speech block, gasping for air, and much more. Speech anxiety can be alleviated and changed. Fearful situations from the past and present can be worked on so that the strong blockages and fears felt in various situations can be reduced and even completely dissolved.

For the affected person it makes no difference how the fear of speaking is called

No matter what the fear of speaking in front of others is called - performance anxiety, presentation anxiety, speech anxiety, stage fright, communication anxiety, fear of meetings, the list is long, as we have already noted above, the fear remains difficult to endure for those affected untreated and often leaves little to little room for maneuver in the specific situations.

Hypnosis or sedatives and medication?

What is better for fear of lectures?

Do you want to finally take off professionally? Finally make a career, realize your ideas and be able to apply your knowledge? But your stage fright and your fear of speaking prevent you from doing so? Then you have two options. You can numb your speech anxiety with medication, for example. There is a whole range of remedies that will calm you down. Then you feel good, you feel light. You go to the lectern and give your speech. Just like that. That sounds tempting, but it has a whole series of disadvantages.
  • WITH MEDICAMENTS, YOU ONLY ENCOURAGE FEAR, YOU DO NOT RESOLVE IT.
    Now you may say, I don't care as long as my fear no longer hinders me. But the numbed fear continues to grow in the background. It gets bigger and the amount of medication you have to take to numb the fear gets bigger too.
  • UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAMENTS, A SPEECH EFFECTS HARMFULNESS AND DEPRESSION.
    If you artificially calm down, you will not bring passion to your speech. That convinces no one.
  • IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE YOU NEED A CLEAR HEAD
    Tranquilizers make us feel calmer. That's their job. In professional life, however, we need to be able to think clearly, and sometimes it is also important to get angry. After all, in a leadership position, you also want to lead - and not just trot along behind. That's why you must never attend or even lead an important meeting under the influence of sedatives.
The other way to overcome your speech anxiety and stage fright is hypnosis Berlin. Here too there is a disadvantage. Hypnosis Berlin does not help overnight. hypnotherapy requires more from you than taking a pill. But hypnosis helps in the long term. Your anxiety gets smaller day by day. And it already starts with the first session. Many of my patients are much freer afterwards. You are still nervous when you have to speak in front of other people - and yet it is easier. From day to day. Try it out.

Speech Anxiety Hypnosis Treatment

Treat glossophobia and speech anxiety with hypnosis

The hypnotic trance is an important and powerful tool with which you can also fight your stage fright. Completely relaxed on the hypnosis chair you will review the anxiety-provoking situations with distance. You will see yourself in your fear without feeling anything negative about it. Together, we will locate the anxiety-provoking areas within you and gently dissolve them. In the next step we will imagine the desired result. You want to stand calmly and confidently in front of the group and share your knowledge and information with others? We will practice this in hypnosis and anchor it in you in such a way that you can also access this new knowledge in the performance situation. My experience is that after the first few sessions, those affected are already much more confident and calm in the relevant situations. Try it out, free yourself from unhealthy stage fright with Hypnosis Berlin!

Hypnosis helps with speech anxiety

Hypnosis can help you become more confident and reduce your fears, so that you can relax and speak freely and, above all, say and say what you want. This will not only make the physical symptoms disappear, but also strengthen your mental health:
You feel more comfortable and can relax even in a situation that scared you before hypnosis. This gives you a better overall feeling about life. You are more balanced and can face challenges - professional and private - easier and come out of you stronger.

Utilizing your own inner resources during hypnosis

Hypnosis involves working with the subconscious mind and one's inner resources. Treatment with hypnosis helps to regain access to inner strengths and to increase self-awareness and security. At the same time, fears of embarrassing yourself in front of a group or not being able to deliver a presentation decrease. Fears of not being good enough are reduced. Blockages that sometimes arose in childhood due to situations with groups, such as at school, are dissolved and you as a person are strengthened with your resources. This enables you to face new situations with more confidence and to develop further. You can already gather your first feelings of success during hypnosis and also in your everyday life, without having to constantly deal with the next anxiety-ridden lecture or even having to suffer from it. It is best to ask yourself how important it is to you to be able to interact freely and in a relaxed manner with people and to speak in front of groups, and whether you really want to develop further and free yourself from your fears. Your own motivation is important in hypnosis. Your own desire to speak freely and to be able to overcome your fear of speaking should be great. Are you really ready to change things in your life and become more confident and stronger through hypnosis? Ask yourself what you want to overcome your speech anxiety for? For yourself, for your own development? Or for your relationships or professional development? What do you want to do first when you have overcome your speech anxiety?

Releasing speech anxiety and speech blockages

Sometimes it's blocks and experiences you've had up until now that have kept you from feeling free and carefree in front of a group. Hypnosis can often help here quickly and effectively to release old blocks and refocus on your strength. In addition to imagining being able to stand and speak freely without fear in front of an audience or the public, motivation is a crucial factor. You can be assured that I will advise you holistically so that the change towards a positive approach to yourself can naturally become your success.

I suffer from speech anxiety. Is hypnotherapy suitable for me?

Finally being more relaxed in dealing with people, more relaxed in presentations at school and in studies, more successful in meetings at work - this is what many people long for who are afraid of speaking freely and making speeches. So I often get the question "Can I use hypnosis to overcome my speech anxiety?" and "Who is hypnosis for speech anxiety even suitable for?" "Does hypnosis also help to reduce panic in front of a group of people?" Here I can say quite clearly: hypnosis can help you if you want to take control of your life and stop torturing yourself during lectures and presentations! Hypnosis can help if the anxiety is even so great that physical symptoms such as heart palpitations and sweating occur. Hypnosis can be helpful to you when you no longer want to settle for the fear of being observed and evaluated and can be your start to a new, relaxed and liberated life! Be excited to see how easy it is. With renewed strength, you can become more and more confident, reduce fears, and learn to speak in a relaxed manner even when you attract all the attention in a room. More and more you will achieve more self-confidence and inner strength. This will make you more self-confident and more confident to say something in front of people or to speak in front of a group.

More Information

Hypnosis Appointment Booking

  • The first hypnosis session usually lasts 120 minutes and includes getting to know each other, a detailed anamnesis and your first hypnosis.
    After booking an appointment in the online calendar, you will receive detailed information about your hypnosis session by email and will receive the hypnosis e-book free of charge when you book the first session. Follow-up appointments usually last 90 - 120 minutes, depending on the current situation and the resulting needs.
    You can find detailed information about the prices under Hypnosis Prices.
  • Smaller topics and issues can sometimes be solved in one session. In particular, hypnosis for smoking cessation takes place in one intensive session. More complex issues that accompany people longer are treated in four sessions on average. Hypnotherapy is to be understood as a short therapy. There are also exceptions where I support clients over several years at their express request.
  • Usually clients come for a follow-up appointment at an interval of 1 to 4 weeks. I have had very good experiences with a session interval of 1 to 2 weeks. I would like to emphasize here that in my experience this depends on the topic and the client.
  • Under the following link you can select and book your appointment yourself in the online calendar: Make an Appointment.
  • You will receive an invoice for each session. This does NOT show any fee codes of the GebüH and does not contain any diagnoses. The session is to be paid privately at the end of the session in cash or with EC card. The practice does NOT bill public and private insurances.
  • You can find more questions and answers in the Hypnosis FAQ section - frequently asked questions about hypnosis.

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