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News Released: May 14, 2005
New Public Speaking Book Offers Seven Simple Tips For Public Speaking Perfection
(PRLEAP.COM) Does doubt about public speaking overwhelm you when you speak? Palms sweating? Heart thumping? Throat lumping? Knees knocking? Memory fading? Armpits streaming? Lungs panting? Legs shaking? Voice earthquaking? Mouth caking like seared mud in the desert?

“Amazingly, most people spend time searching the net for the secret to overcoming their fear of public speaking. Many download all the free answers they can find. They practice breathing techniques, positive visualization, but find them shallow and unhelpful. In fact, such techniques can actually increase anxiety” says Paul Evans author of Instant Speaking Success http://tinyurl.com/cpgf4

“Yet, if you ask those same people if they have a solid outline. An unforgettable message. A lecture or speech of encouragement. A presentation so good the audience will walk away richer for having been there. They won’t have a clue.”

Great public speaking consists of three elements:
1. Content. A message packed with practical, easy to remember and useful information.
2. Confidence. Knowing that what you share will be valuable and useful, and that you are the one to share it.
3. Connection. You must be able to draw the audience into the message. That’s what brings the laughter, the tears, the standing ovations.

Not only will the combination of those three erase your fear, they will keep you from being dull and boring. And whatever you do - don’t be dull and boring. Nothing’s worse than looking into the audience’s eyes and they’re closed.

Design Unforgettable Messages. A step by step process that takes you from the very first word of your message to the last syllable. This is not the open, body of the message, close outline that is taught so prevalently. This is a 7 step system that’s impossible to mess up.

Instant Speaking Success covers such topics as; Is it really possible to speak without being scared? How do I find information on the subject?. How do I know what material to use?
How do I organize all this information? What do I talk about? Should I use notes, memorize my talk, or what?

For more information on Instant Speaking Success please visit http://tinyurl.com/cpgf4

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From The Age

Belinda McClory discovered the truth about stalking for her latest role with the MTC, writes Robin Usher.

Stalking destroys people’s lives, which is exactly the result that some perpetrators seek. This came as a shock to Belinda McClory, who plays the lead role in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s new production about stalking, Boy Gets Girl.

“I used to think that stalking was the result of a mental imbalance,” she says. “Of course, it can be the result of a delusion about a relationship that doesn’t exist, but in other cases it is outright cruelty…

…The cast met a stalking expert from a sex offenders’ clinic who said that victims were likely to suffer from agoraphobia or panic attacks, and would remain suspicious about other people for a long time.

“I found it very disturbing that some stalkers orchestrated everything about their behaviour. I think that it is truly shocking that someone can be so malicious.”…

Read the full article

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By Joan Britz
May 16, 2005 American Chronicle
Afraid and unsure where to turn, the panic sets in once more and all else fades away. Nothing else matters accept finding a place that feels safe far away from the present situation. A turn of events causes an out of control overwhelming sense of intense unrest and total instability. The inevitable falls down as swift as a hawk scooping its prey from a mile above…

…Panic attacks may lead to a condition known as Agoraphobia in which because the person fears the onset of a panic attack they begin to avoid areas and places and in some cases become homebound altogether…

Read the full article here

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Conquering fears delivers rewards

Lisi Tesher
MetroNews.com

I inherited a fear of heights from my mom. If I get too close to the edge of a precipice, my knees go weak and I get the feeling of vertigo. Imagine how I felt when told I had to absail (rappel) down a mountain as part of a summer program which I was leading. But, like Oprah did on one of her recent episodes, I bit the bullet, listened carefully to directions, and leaned back until I was parallel with the ground below.

Now it’s an extreme activity that I love — but I’m still scared and shaky while gearing up and getting into first position. Staring your fears in the eye takes guts and courage, but it’s well worth it. How many people do you know who’ve hung on a rope down Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa?

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Controversial artist works up high in spite of fear of heights.

By Joe Segura
presstelegram.com

However, the famed muralist did find himself trapped April 16 on a scaffold about 95 feet up, after a motor broke down.

Wyland admits to a fear of heights, but said he’s usually able to put it out of his mind. However, when the motor quit, the fear kicked into gear.

Wyland and two volunteers with him tried at first to make repairs, but rejected advice from the ground to unlock the motors and lower the scaffold by hand. Eventually, Wyland and the volunteers had to be rescued by Long Beach firefighters.

“I’m trying to save the whales, and they’re trying to rescue the whale artist,” he quipped.

That incident was about a week before the annual Long Beach Grand Prix, when Wyland enjoyed a panoramic view of the race. The work in progress attracted considerable attention from race fans and racers alike.

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It is possible to get over a fear of heights
Staff Reports

By John Derrick
For The Star Outdoor’s Page

When I was a little, little boy, I said I wanted to be a mountain climber when I grew up. Then I figured out I was afraid of heights.

So to combat my fear I have exposed myself to all manner of acrophobic horrors.

I have rock climbed; I have rappelled; I have skydived.

I have also been to the top of every building, tower, mountain and cathedral I could. While I was studying in Freiburg, Germany, I repeatedly climbed the town cathedral’s spire. I traveled to Ulm, home of the tallest cathedral in the world. And I climbed that one too.

I like to think the repeated self-traumatization shows “spunk.”…

thought back to the fear of my father and myself of suddenly jumping. I realized we’re not irrational, we’re Airborne, and that’s not bad.

Anyway, my acrobatic skills occasionally come in useful in this job. Check out my flamingo-filled blog, jderrick.blogspot.com, for some photos, courtesy of Tommy Forney (who seems to be everywhere), of me clinging to a climbing tower during the recent Merry-Go-Round festival in Shelby, snapping photos of young Renee Shannon on her way to the top.

And I wasn’t even scared. I was too busy…

Read the full article here

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Life With Ferris: The Courage Of Lana Beth
by Ferris Robinson
The Chattanoogan.com

I don’t like needles. I can’t even stand to get my finger pricked. I never watch the nurse jab my poor fingertip and have to turn my head away like a little girl. I am even worse at the idea of a shot. I suppose this fear of needles is the reason I have never given blood. I am great at making excuses…

But I did give blood last week because Lana Beth Webster inspired me to do so…

She didn’t know that I am even more terrified of dogs than I am of getting shots. But I put myself between the dog and her and hollered at it like all I ever wanted to do was kick the daylights out of a growling, long-fanged dog…

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Phobia, which means “fear of,” was doing fine as a medical term until recently. “Phobias are irrational fears,” says Elaine Rodino, a psychologist in Santa Monica, California. “They are not just `sort of fears;’ they are full and intense and uncontrollable.” An anxiety psychologist in Chicago, David Carbonell, says that “the clinical term phobia is not doing well. Often it’s appended to another word to indicate a wide range of dislikes that may have nothing to do with the core meaning of avoidance as a response to powerful fear. I just fielded a request for an interview on `nudophobia.’”

These range from Islamophobe to Christophobe, both of which were used in the Oct. 23, 1997, edition of the Independent in London. They include Dean-o-phobe in a 2003 New Republic article, when Jonathan Chait confessed, “It’s not entirely clear to me why I’ve taken such an intense dislike to Howard Dean.”

Today’s negative connotation of the suffix -phobia (the ailment) or -phobe (the person) comes from the political-social accusation of homophobia. The original meaning, according to the OED, is “fear of men, or aversion towards the male sex.” Chambers’ Journal in 1920 wrote of a woman whose “salient characteristic was a contempt for the male sex represented in the human biped … The seeds of homophobia had been sown early.”

Many doctors take umbrage at the general use of their suffix in words like Francophobe for “one who calls French fries `freedom fries;’” they don’t like the way it dilutes the scientific seriousness of the term about an irrational fear. But professions don’t own their words. Mathematicians also gripe about the theft of their beloved parameters, to no avail; common usage has a way of snatching a specific word or suffix to do more general semantic work.

Patients with social anxiety disorder are less likely to visit their primary care doctors than people with other psychiatric disorders like depression.

patients with social anxiety disorder made only four visits per year to their primary care physician, compared with nearly seven visits a year for other psychiatric patients and six visits for well patients.

Patients with the disorder were also significantly more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs than other psychiatric patients, Dr. Raz Gross and colleagues at Columbia University found.

“Patients might be self-medicating…using alcohol as a social lubricant,” Gross says. She notes that certain components of substance abuse treatment such as Alcoholics Anonymous, with their emphasis on group discussion and public speaking, are unlikely to attract these patients.

“Physicians in primary care and general medical settings should be aware of the possibility that patients with SAD are avoiding regular medical care,” Gross says.

A new study hopes to show virtual reality exposure therapy is effective in treating interpersonal fear.

For some, the thought of speaking in public makes their palms sweat, heart race and stomach turn. But virtual reality exposure therapy – computer-generated images and sound delivered through a helmet-like headset, may help.