5 (false) myths about fear of crowds

Many people who think they understand fear of crowds (eg because they suffer from it) hold wrong beliefs about it. In the years that I have been teaching public speaking and researching audience anxiety, I have discovered how misleading first impressions and inferences from one private case can be. Sometimes the misconceptions cause incorrect treatment attempts, and in other cases they cause people to throw up their hands and give up on treatment altogether.

That's why I want to disprove some urban legends here, because there are some such beliefs that are not only wrong but also harmful, and it is important to address them:

1. 'Imagine them in their underwear'

This is one of the most common tips given by people who think they understand the subject (search "fear of the public and panties" on Google - guaranteed fun). But in the 12 years I've been teaching rhetoric, I've yet to come across anyone who was helped by this tip.

• Source of the legend: The idea behind the proposal is that people in underwear are ridiculous and you can't be afraid of something ridiculous.
• why is not it working: There are several reasons for this: first of all, because it distracts the mind, and many of those who suffer from fear of crowds also have a lot of distracting thoughts that make life difficult for them. Second, because it is not reliable. No one is really convinced that the audience is sitting in front of them in their underwear just because they want to believe it, so the fear actually remains.
  But there is an even more important reason not to use this tip, especially for men: if you are a man, and there are women in the audience, and you try to imagine them in underwear, then the expression that will appear on your face really - but really - will not please them!

2. 'Just start and it will go away by itself'

This is a tip that can only be given by someone who has never suffered from fear of crowds, and to whom fear of crowds seems a small problem or a matter of spoiled character, who just start and discover that the demon is not so terrible.

• Source of the legend: Fear of crowds is a social phobia, and one of the definitions of a phobia is an irrational fear of something that shouldn't be scary (for example, a phobia of closed places or cats). That's why people who don't suffer from fear of crowds think that those who try it once will see that it's not so bad and the fear will pass. In addition, since one of the characteristics of the phobia is that those who suffer from it are also aware that it is irrational, they are unable to explain why what they start will not make the fear go away on its own.
• why is not it working: Because crowd fear is a circular phenomenon. The initial stress created causes emotional and physiological symptoms such as dry mouth and lack of concentration that impair the ability to speak, the result is a less good speech and therefore a sense of failure that makes the next speech seem more frightening. After a few cases like this, a pattern of thinking is formed that seems irrational to an outside observer, but it has very real reasons.

2. More people are afraid of crowds than of Death (Seinfeld)

Jerry Seinfeld It is said in one of the chapters that a study found that people are more afraid of a crowd than death, so at a funeral they would prefer to be in a coffin and not carry the eulogy.

• Source of the legend: Everything can be proven with statistics. In this case, there are studies that check how often people are afraid of various problems, and it turned out that there are people who are afraid of speaking in front of an audience for a large part of their time, and do not give much thought to death. The rest is good copywriting.
• Why this is not true: Because it's bullshit. For the vast majority of people, including those who suffer from an acute fear of crowds, the physical dangers are more frightening - not to mention the fear of death. In the ten years that I have been teaching, I have come across one and only one case of a person whose fear of the audience was more acute than the fear of death (he won the Bezalesh and was unable to tell the audience how...). For everyone else it's a nice joke from a talented comedian.

4. 'You have a fear of crowds?… You?!! But you have so much self-confidence.

Many have a stereotype that fear of crowds is actually a form of shyness, and that only introverts suffer from fear of crowds.

• Source of the legend: Fear of the public is very similar to shyness and introversion. So much so that there seems to be a debate in the academic community today as to whether shyness is a type of anxiety disorder (By God I'm not making this up). The imagery stems from the fact that the effect of fear of an audience - avoiding taking center stage and expressing opinions and feelings - is similar to the behavior of someone who does not like attention.
• Why this is not true: Because fear of crowds is a completely different kind of problem, that's why many eloquent, sociable and sometimes even extroverted people who suffer from fear of crowds at all levels come to my courses. The opposite also happens - there are introverted and shy people in everyday life, who have no fear of the public at all. Those people flourish as soon as they get on stage, even though one-on-one and in small groups they rarely stand out (they say that Yehuda Polykar and Arkady Dukhin are like that).

5. 'You must see a psychologist. there's nothing to do'

There is confusion between psychology as a field of research that identifies problems and psychotherapy as a method of treatment. As a result, there is a feeling that if there is a psychological problem then only a psychologist can solve it. It's a bit similar to thinking that if you have a health problem then only a doctor can solve it, while in reality a dietitian, pharmacist or physical therapist could help much more.

• Source of the legend: Fear of crowds, once considered a character trait related to shyness, has been defined associal anxiety by researchers from the field of psychology (and not from the field of education, management or medicine, for example) and therefore it appears in the DSM (psychiatry's bible) and psychologists treat it with three main methods. One treatment method is Dynamic psychotherapy Known in the public imagination as "Tell me about yourself two hours a week for two years and at the end we will find out that your mother is to blame", the second approach is The behavioral cognitive therapy which is known as the method "Imagine yourself in front of an audience - how do you feel? Try to breathe deeply and imagine yourself looking the audience in the eye. what do you see?". The third approach is the pharmacological approach which is based on Tranquilizers (like Klonx, Valium, etc.) or on Anti-anxiety drugs such as Prozac, Cipralex Co.
• why is not it working: The truth is that sometimes psychological therapy (especially behaviorist) actually gives certain results. But fundamentally, a psychologist is still only one person and therefore not an audience. That is why all treatment with him takes place in isolation from the problem itself and therefore both the difficulty in dealing with it and the achievement of success feel 'unreal'. That's why proper treatment, for example in workshops for fear of crowds, should be done with a real group, which requires dealing with and essentially solves the problem of avoidance.

So what is crowd fear really?

Fear of crowds is a social anxiety disorder. No more, but no less either. As such, it is a phenomenon that science still does not know how to predict in whom it will develop and why, but it offers tools that are not bad at all to treat it, some of which were mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

One of the more effective tools, which I use in my courses, is a combination of behavioral psychology (for example, graded exposure to the audience, and tools to improve speech control) together with techniques from the world of psychology of the support groups (for example, the discovery that people with a fear of crowds have above average intelligence).

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