Mental illness and working in theatre
Sep 9
2019, 08:36:46 PM
I am a former musical theater performer who is currently a PhD candidate in a Clinical Psychology program. I have been teaching voice lessons for almost 15 years in NYC and a very high percentage of my students have mental health issues in addition to being professional performers. Audition anxiety (and performance anxiety) are big issues in the community, and there is a surprisingly large stigma attached to them. I just defended my dissertation which focused on testing a treatment I adapted for musical theater performers suffering from audition anxiety. I hope to bring more awareness to the issue as well as to help people find appropriate treatment. I even created a website, AuditionAnxiety.com, that I hope will help people. The interesting part of my study (besides the fact that that treatment was helpful), was that many of the people who enrolled were highly skilled, talented and successful.
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