What is it about?
Music performance anxiety is widespread and can be a crippling experience. This research focuses on two little-known therapies that target both the conscious and unconscious thought processes which exacerbate this condition, Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. The practical implications of the findings are that both therapies are fast-acting and have significant beneficial effects on anxiety in performance.
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Why is it important?
This research is unique as the therapies focus on automated processes (processes no longer in conscious awareness). They target the dysfunctional thoughts and memories that impact negatively on present-day performance. The research is timely as there is a plethora of current research on therapies that focus on the conscious mind. However very little research has looked at the role that the unconscious mind plays in the maintenance of performance anxiety.
Perspectives
This research has shown that cognitive hypnotherapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (therapies concentrating on automated processes that are no longer in conscious awareness) have an important contribution to make to the understanding and treatment of music performance anxiety. The findings from the research extend existing knowledge and have called into question both the current literature in this field and the effectiveness of therapies in vogue that focus solely on the conscious mind.
Elizabeth Brooker
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Music performance anxiety: A clinical outcome study into the effects of cognitive hypnotherapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing in advanced pianists, Psychology of Music, May 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0305735617703473.
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