“My mind goes blank, I feel heat rising through my body, my heart races, my breathing almost stops, and my muscles go weak.” It’s a physical experience delivered by a seasoned musician worry during the performance. “The strange thing is that in some performances I’m completely calm and unaffected, in other performances I’m afraid of being judged by others. I can’t figure out what’s going to happen in some situations and not in others.”
There are several schools of thought that psychologists use to examine the experience of anxiety in music performance from a biological, evolutionary perspective. cognitive-behavioral point of view. Each approach offers a distinct lens through which to observe and understand the terrifying experience of music performance anxiety. I would like to explore some ideas from a psychodynamic perspective that may help you understand your experience of anxiety during performance.
Modern and classical psychodynamic theory treats musical performance anxiety in a way that differs from other psychological theories popular today. Contrary to behavioral and some evolutionary-biological theories, musical performance anxiety is not viewed as a reaction to a real threat arising from the performance situation, but quite the opposite. unconscious deeply embedded inner voice activation or to speak for oneself We learned from overly critical parents or care giver. These deeply ingrained thoughts are activated when we are in a situation similar to our interactions with a judgmental parent in the early years of our development. Experience is created before we are consciously aware of ourselves, and it becomes a central aspect of our character or way of being in the world.
This way of being is an adaptation to our environment, which shapes how we feel and how we see ourselves. the environment We live. When we experience strong physical reactions in anticipation of a realization, we are reacting to the unconscious voice of the superego, the “critical parent” operating directly beneath our conscious mind. Unaware of this silent but powerful influence on our bodies and minds, we a childhood fear the threat of rejection and abandonment of our caregiver. In essence, the unconscious little boy inside us is reacting to the very real threat that once was, “If you don’t live up to my expectations, I will leave you.”
Shame on you, guiltand appears as a signal anger or fear in various situations. It is important to understand that we are experiencing symptoms as a reaction to the actual event of musical performance, not the other way around. projection A childhood fear that becomes part of how we experience the world and identify as individuals. The real danger in a musical performance situation is not that we are judged by the people watching and listening, but rather that they confirm the childhood beliefs that critical parents threatened us, that we are “found” by the audience, that we are not loved and worthy. It’s really a matter of having a gut feeling self esteem and a basic sense of security in our earliest environments. If there is a hidden love or threat of abandonment in those early years, it becomes a sensitive signal for anxiety in adult life.
To complicate this complex scenario, we often find ourselves in situations that unconsciously repeat unresolved childhood emotions. trauma. In psychodynamic terminology, this is called repetition compulsion. This means that we tend to get into the same dynamic with different people throughout our lives. Although we are unaware of the dynamics ourselves, we tend to attract people whose judgments resemble the qualities of the caregiver who shaped our trauma. When entering a relationship, we tend to repeat the situation, hoping to achieve a different result. However, the experience of trauma is projected onto the current situation and blames it with a disproportionate and usually incorrect assessment of the threat. We relive feelings of failure in trying to please a parent or caregiver who is impossible to please.
As musicians, we encounter this feeling of inferiority by overcompensating to gain a sense of control for fear of rejection and betrayal by others. These are projections from our early childhood experiences and feel current and clear. We find a solution to our fear of abandonment in the pursuit perfectionismthe false belief that by being perfect we can control how others perceive us. We can often regression entering the previous state of consciousness of childhood, suddenly we behave like children in a situation where we perceive a threat.
It may take some time to realize, realize, and recognize that musical performance anxiety activates childhood sensitivity to criticism and judgment. In Psychodynamics psychotherapythere is a defense rejection it hides the trauma from the conscious mind. It is possible to work through protection without a therapist. In his classic text, Self-analysis, Karen Horney offers a systematic approach to working through the layers of ego defenses that hide trauma from our awareness. Through systematic and rigorous analysis, one can loosen the ego defenses and gradually eliminate the childhood reactive sensitivities that have hardened into the character structure.
