Transforming Performance Anxiety Treatment

Elizabeth Brooker is an experienced professional musician, qualified hypnotherapist, EMDR practitioner and neuro-linguistic programmer. She has an MA in Music Psychology from the University of Sheffield and a PhD doctorate from the University of Leeds where the focus of her research was reducing anxiety experienced in music performance.

Contents

List of figures, tables and appendices

Preface

Acknowledgements

PART I Performance anxiety and the use of psychodynamic interventions

1 Exploring performance anxiety

Challenging the dogma of preferred therapies in current use

2 Cognitive hypnotherapy

Changing negativity and anxiety

3 Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing

Transforming trauma and the emotional mind

PART II Nine case studies

4 Reflective case studies

Method and procedure

5 ADHD, perfectionism and fear of failure

A link to music performance anxiety?

6 Scepticism regarding treatment for piano performance

Why randomly selected therapy may not work

7 An adult beginner’s fears

The spectre of a piano examination

8 Letting others down in clarinet performance

Ghosts from the past

9 Trauma when singing in a performance situation

The past need not predict the future

10 Anxiety in the sports arena

The one-incident trigger

11 IBS, anxiety at work and in the sports arena

A life-changing experience post-therapy

12 Confidence in presentations

Hypnotherapy makes it so

13 Presentations no longer feared post-therapy

An exciting experience

14 Future directions

The future is not set in stone

Index

Figures, tables and appendices

Figure 1.1

The four components of anxiety (based on Miller and Chesky, 2004)

Table 4.1

Case conceptualisation and therapeutic change methods

Appendices

5.1 Self-Report Questionnaire pre-therapy treatment

5.2 Self-Report Questionnaire post-therapy treatment

7.1 Log of musical experiences post-therapy treatment