Say It Well

Public speaking phobias stem from deep-rooted fears of social rejection.

If you’ve ever felt nervous about giving a speech, you’re in good company: The fear of public speaking is one of the world’s most common phobias. According to Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, a clinical psychologist with Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, public speaking phobias originate from a fear of social rejection. For early humans, rejection from the tribe was tantamount to a threat to survival: Without safety in numbers, an outsider would be easy pickings for predators. She explains that hardwired instincts remain strong today; thus, “Social rejection can feel like a fast track to death.”

Even President Barack Obama, now a skilled orator, used to feel nervous about speaking in public: In 1981, at 19 years old, Obama spoke briefly at a protest against apartheid’s racial segregation policy at Los Angeles’s Occidental College. He was uncomfortable on stage, feeling that he had no business speaking on behalf of Black people, given that he was from a mixed-race family. Today, Obama stresses that having a firm sense of who you...