Mitigating Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) Within the Teaching Studio: Theories & Practical Strategies

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a debilitating and common form of anxiety affecting student and professional musicians alike, and can shorten performance careers if left untreated. Thus far, treatments for MPA have focused primarily on using psycho-therapeutic and medicinal interventions, both of which must be administered by qualified practitioners with proper education and training in clinical psychology, medicine, or other health disciplines. While numerous treatments exist, the most common treatment for MPA by far is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with exposure therapy, and while the research in support of CBT + exposure is strong, music students often face valid hurdles preventing them from receiving this type of treatment: lack of access to qualified practitioners trained to use CBT with musicians, lack of time, lack of financial means to afford treatment, and stigma associated with psychotherapy.

In recent years, an alternative model for treating MPA has shown great promise among practitioners - training music teachers to use interventions from evidence-based coaching models aimed to treat MPA, rather than continually referring students with MPA to receive psychotherapy like CBT. Such a treatment model would address many, if not all, of the aforementioned hurdles preventing student musicians from receiving effective MPA treatment. The Voice Study Centre has led the charge in researching such an alternative treatment model, by training singing teachers to achieve competency in using Acceptance and Commitment Coaching (ACC) to directly treat their students’ MPA themselves. Thus far, the results of 10 studies in which a singing teacher was trained to use ACC within their voice studio, or within the classroom, have all shown positive support for such a teacher-led treatment model for MPA.

In this two-part course, you will learn about existing MPA treatments and their level of research support, including ACC. You will also learn several strategies from ACC that can be ethically administered by non-clinical professionals within the voice studio as way to effectively treat students’ MPA.