Speaking About the Unspeakable - Depression, Anxiety, Death and Trauma

There are some topics that make even the most experienced and eloquent speaker squirm and lock his tongue in silence:

Death.
Grief.
Illness.
Depression.
Sexual abuse.
War and PTSD.
Family trauma.

They're not your typical speech subjects, and yet they're such universal issues.

Speaking about difficult topics can require more tact, knowledge and preparation than the average presentation, and it naturally triggers a lot of questions.nn* How important is it to have personal experience with the topic?nn* How do you manage your and your audience's emotions?nn* And is it okay to make jokes when speaking about a sensitive subject?

Here now an expert's advice on these and other questions about how to touch audiences while speaking about difficult, highly emotional subjects.

First you need to realize that often there will be victims in the audience, which makes a sensitive topic even more precarious.

"You can't expect not to push anybody's buttons. Sometimes, the talk brings up a personal issue that makes somebody emotional. There can be difficult moments when somebody in the audience is hostile or gives you hostile feedback, and it happens more often with topics that are sensitive. Your job is to stay professional no matter what and stay tuned into what happens in the audience."

In cases when emotional people approach you after the talk, make sure you're able to offer some toll free numbers for various mental health hotlines or other information about where the person can turn to receive help.

Connecting with the audience and making them feel comfortable with the topic is one of the best ways to get your point across.

"Maintain eye contact, involve the audience when you can, and honor and respect them."

Sometimes, using humor can lighten the mood and diffuse some of the seriousness inevitably associated with the topic.

"Generalized jokes about dysfunctional families, may work but jokes about the specific topic of your talk may backfire or require you to time it a little differently."

Talks that focus more on the personal than on statistics tend to resonate with the audience and sharing a personal experience makes the presentation more real. Revealing your own story, whether it's about growing up with alcoholic parents or a problem co-worker, helps bridge the gap between speaker and audience. But, use caution. Telling the audience how you battled to overcome a trauma is more important than the fact that it happened to you.

"Try to do it with discretion and when you think it will benefit the audience as a learning experience. Sharing personal stories helps create a bond, but you can't do too much of it because then it might have the opposite effect and push people away. There has to be a balance."

For speakers who are preparing to tackle a topic like child abuse for the first time, here's some advice:

"Educate yourself, do the research and be prepared that there will be people in the audience who will be touched by it. The most important thing is that the speaker is comfortable with the topic, so do whatever it takes to get to that point. Spend a little time with people who work with it and interview people who have experience with it."

"Another thing that's so important when you're talking about topics like this is to offer solutions. We're talking about problems, but as a speaker it's also your job to present some things that you can do about it."