Interventions for Music Performance Anxiety
A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Psychiatric, Emotional and Behavioral Disorders".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 930
Special Issue Editor
Interests: music performance anxiety; musicians’ health; wellbeing; psychological flexibility; self-compassion; acceptance and commitment therapy; virtual reality performance simulation; peak performance; music listening; professional psychology training
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Performing music is one of the most complex tasks related to human performance, incorporating both cognitive and sensorimotor skills. The need for performance excellence exposes musicians to significant physical and psychological stress and injury throughout their education and professional career. Performance anxiety is the most significant psychological issue experienced by performing musicians of any age. This can be significantly detrimental to a performer’s psychological well-being and efforts to achieve optimal performance. Yet, the complete elimination of performance anxiety is neither possible nor desirable, with some degree of anxiety being a natural and desirable feature of optimal performance. Individual differences abound with respect to the characteristics of anxiety, physiologically, cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. These differences drive the need to consider a nuanced approach that enables musicians achieve their ideal psychological state for performance.
This Special Issue aims to identify psychological interventions that can aid musicians with performance anxiety. The compendium will contain original, theoretically grounded and empirically validated studies of practical, applied approaches that enable musicians to respond to symptoms of anxiety in constructive ways in order to enhance their performance. The scope of these articles and reviews will enrich our understanding of interventions that aim to manage and transform performance anxiety in clinical, educational, and professional settings across the lifespan.
Dr. Margaret S. Osborne
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- performance anxiety
- musicians
- music performance
- treatment
- prevention
- coping strategies
- education
- flow
- peak performance
- musician’s health
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Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Racial imposter syndrome and music performance anxiety: a case study
Author: Fraser
Highlights: - A professional musician in her 30s presented experiencing anticipatory anxiety about performing music related to her estranged father's cultural background
- An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach had some effectiveness in increasing psychological flexibility and improving performance readiness
- An attachment based approach was adopted to address the client's self-doubt about representing her cultural background through musical performance
