In-person in Harrisonburg and online throughout Virginia.
Therapy for Performing Artists
Your worth isn’t tied to your callback.
Therapy for performers who want to feel whole again.
You’ve spent your whole life becoming other people.
It’s time to take care of the person underneath.
Any of these feel familiar?
Two words: Theater. Trauma. You’ve got it. You’re a little broken from it. You want to feel different.
Audition anxiety galore: You’ve practiced endlessly and know you’ve got your audition cut down, but the second you get in the room, your body acts like you’ve never prepared once in your life. All of your nerves show up in your singing, you go up on your words, and you leave feeling absolutely defeated and angry at yourself that anxiety got the best of you once again. You’re starting to wonder why you even keep trying.
You know you’re great at what you do, but you are utterly terrified to share it with the world. It makes no sense at all, but you still can’t overcome it.
Lately you feel like your whole self-worth is defined by your performance. If it goes well, you’re on top of the world. If it doesn’t, or you don’t get the role you most wanted, you feel like an absolute failure. You know that’s not true, but you feel it deeply, and you want to be able to separate your self-worth from your success as an artist.
You are Burnt. Out. A crispy little pile of ashes too weak to re-ignite. You’ve taken on too many commitments, too many heavy roles, and now you feel that heaviness all throughout your life. You want to keep playing these really meaningful parts and performing, but you need a moment to breathe for a second. You’re scared you’re losing your lightness and joy.
You’re a sexual assault survivor trying to feel safe again on the stage. You keep accidentally holding back emotionally with your scene partners. Choreography and acting is full of close contact with other performers, and you don’t know how to feel safe in your body anymore. And heaven help you if you get a role with stage intimacy; you’re deliberately avoiding even trying for those because you’re so overwhelmed by the idea
You’re a brave explorer, here for yourself and your art. You’ve spent all these years taking on the lives of your characters, but you’re realizing you never got a chance to figure out who you are underneath all of that. You want to understand your own psyche better, for better or worse, so you can connect more deeply with the roles you’ll get to play while still feeling like an authentic version of yourself.
Your life looks great on paper - you’re playing your favorite roles, you can whip out a high C on demand, and your theater family are your favorite people in the world. But underneath it all you also know there are things you never talk about that still feel deeply unresolved:
that deep loneliness you feel because your family never comes to your performances,
that really horrible thing that happened freshman year that you shoved deep down just to survive,
that complete invisibility you feel when you try to talk to your mom,
that struggle you’re having to feel safe with a dating partner,
that past teacher you can’t get out of your head because they weren’t just “problematic”, they actually crossed real lines.
Externally things look great as a performer, but internally you know the walls are cracking, and you think it might be time to finally look at the hard stuff, too.
Whatever drew you to this page, it’s probably getting in the way of your ability to fully connect with your art and share yourself with the world, on-stage and off.
Therapy is the place where you don’t have to perform anymore. (Finally.)
In therapy, we’ll take a mind, body, spirit approach to helping you reconnect with your genuine, authentic self, not just the version that has to show up on stage every performance or hold it together through rehearsal. You get to put down the weight of every role you’ve tried to play and take a moment to just breathe again.
You may learn to regulate your nervous system better, find the rituals that help you stay grounded in your life, or pause and think about what art you actually want to be doing, regardless of what you’ve been told to do.
You’ll probably learn something about the roles you step into most frequently in your own life, and you may start playing around with something a little different. This is depth work, after all.
If you’re dealing with trauma, I’ll help you listen to your inner wisdom again, so you can connect with what feels safe in your body and practice acting on your needs and desires once more.
If you’ve been a burnt out pile of ashes, we’ll try to help you find your inner phoenix.
You get to reclaim your confidence, your lightness, your deep and soulful connections, and even the little joys that keep you gleefully running back to performing in the first place.
This is your real life, not a script.
Let’s help you reconnect with your soul a little bit.
Therapy for performing artists can help you:
Feel safe on the stage again.
Reconnect with what brought you to performing in the first place.
Strengthen your connection to yourself, your emotions, and your characters.
Befriend your nervous system once more.
Reclaim the joy you used to feel in your life and your art.
Whether you’re center stage or standing in the wings, you are worthy of a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the stage.
Reclaim your voice, your body, and your joy.
FAQs about Therapy for Performing Artists
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Yes! One way is through a free consultation call, but if you’re not ready yet or just want to hear more, I’ve also been on a few podcast episodes with local performing industry professionals. Listen for free here (you don’t have to pay or contribute to the Substack):
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Sadly, probably not. Unless a lot of years have passed and our connection has been limited. From an ethical perspective, we likely know each other too well - and know too much about each other - for me to be an effective and healthy therapist for you if we’ve shared the stage before. I’m happy to talk to you more about this, though, and give you referrals to someone else who may be a good fit.
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Nope, though the bulk (90%+) of my clients do identify as women. I work with clients of any gender and am an LGBTQ+ affirming therapist.
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Great question! I started my career completely focused on trauma, specifically working with sexual assault survivors. That helped me learn and practice trauma-informed care across many different settings, even before training as a therapist. Incorporating trauma work with sexual assault survivors as a therapist was the next natural step. This is my bread and butter, top level of expertise.
My graduate program also incorporated many approaches based in psychodynamic and Jungian depthwork. Rather than focusing on quick fix and surface-level solutions, these approaches try to get at the root causes of suffering. I learned to help you (the client) explore the unconscious patterns and core narratives that shape you so that you can know, access, and integrate the real you, even the unconscious parts. This training is at the root of my approach as a therapist, and it works really well for exploring dating and relationship patterns, how past trauma is impacting us, and other stuckness we encounter in life.
Turns out, both of these approaches are also helpful to performing artists. Many struggles like audition anxiety and stage fright are struggles in regulating your nervous system - just like in trauma work, but from a different cause. Performing and creativity also challenge us to find our authentic self and understand and express the depth of the human experience - that’s where the depthwork comes into play. In therapy for performing artists, I tap into both approaches to help you access the growth you’re seeking. At the end of the day, performers are also just humans with human stuff, too.
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“Break a leg.” Obviously. Break ALL the legs. You think I’m silly enough to wish you things similar to a lucky charm? Might as well have me referencing the Scottish play in a theater…