Take our Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test

Find a therapist to overcome anxiety

From a psychodynamic perspective, anxiety can be seen as a reactivated voice from an overcritical caregiver.

Musicians can unconsciously recreate past traumas by entering situations that mimic the dynamics of childhood.

Performance anxiety is an unconscious learned response to a "critical parent," not the audience.

“My mind becomes blank, I feel a surge of warmth overtaking my body, my heart races, my breathing almost stops, and my muscles become weak.” This is a description offered by a seasoned musician of the physical experience of anxiety during a performance. “The baffling thing is, some performances I am completely calm and unaffected, other performances I feel the dread of being judged by others. I can’t identify what causes it to happen in some situations and not in others.”

There are multiple schools of thought that psychologists use to explore the experience of music performance anxiety, from the biological, evolutionary perspective to the cognitive-behavioral perspective. Each approach offers a distinct lens through which to observe and understand the dreadful experience of musical performance anxiety. I would like to explore some insights from the psychodynamic perspective that might offer clues to an understanding of your experience of anxiety while performing.

Contemporary and classic psychodynamic theory views musical performance anxiety in a way that is different from most other psychological........

© Psychology Today