Why Is Dealing With A Witness’ Stress Important?
Too much stress can interfere with your witness’ self-confidence, clear thinking, memory, composure and overall demeanor. It often manifests through unintended body language and voice tonalities that are easily misinterpreted. How many times have you watched a well-prepared witness unexpectedly become unraveled during testimony? Red-flags of stress – Obvious nervousness, anxiety and emotional distress are easy to recognize. However,degrees of anger, sarcasm, profanity, defensiveness, superiority and/or flippant conduct often are overlooked. Many witnesses mistakenly use these as a show of strength to unconsciously compensate for their discomfort. To neutral observers these are often recognized as cover-ups or distractions to hide something. Both fear (often expressed as hesitancy to speak) and shame produce great stress, and are commonly misunderstood to signify guilt and lack of honesty. Confusion and forgetfulness brought on by stress can inadvertently infer a lack of confidence, whi
