Attachment quality is associated with music performance anxiety in professional musicians: an exploratory narrative study

• Authors: Dianna T. Kenny , Jeremy Holmes

Abstracts

EN

This paper investigates attachment themes in the life history narratives of professional orchestral musicians and their relationship with music performance anxiety (MPA). Narrative accounts derived from open-ended in-depth interviews of ten professional musicians were analysed from an attachment perspective using content and thematic analysis. We hypothesized that the performance setting re-triggers unprocessed feelings related to early attachment experiences, especially when traumatic, and that defensive manoeuvres against their re-emergence into consciousness are activated. The interviews identified early relational trauma as a relevant etiological factor in the MPA-symptomatic of the musicians studied. A case is made for the addition of an attachment-informed life-course model rather than a purely symptomatic approach to understanding and treating severe MPA and other intra-personal psychodynamics of performing musicians.

Keywords

EN

attachment theory; attachment quality; attachment narratives; musicians; music performance anxiety

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 283-298

Dates

published

2018

Contributors

author

Dianna T. Kenny

author

Jeremy Holmes

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

2127828