Therapy
Treating Music Performance Anxiety by Healing Attachment Trauma
Introduction
Kenny et al (2014) present a case study of a typical professional musician suffering from music performance anxiety: a 55-year-old senior strings player in a leading Australian orchestra, named Kurt[1]. During musical performances he typically reported overwhelming anxiety, distracting physical sensations and thoughts, inability to control his arms, and striated muscle tension. This significantly detracted from both his performance and his personal enjoyment of his career[2].
Music performance anxiety is a serious problem for many professional musicians[3]. Typical symptoms while performing include overwhelming anxiety, profuse sweating, dry mouth, muscle tension, inability to focus, loss of self, loss of flow, paralysis and catastrophic performance failure. General traits common to sufferers include perfectionism, dependence on drugs and alcohol, fear of exposure, fear of failure, catastrophizing and extreme emotional distress. Such traits have consequences beyond the performance realm including poor mental and physical health. Many sufferers abandon their career in music altogether while others soldier on despite having a miserable experience[4]. (more…)