Emotional Health Issues in Professional Classical Musicians

The professional classical musician experiences a close and often inseparable relationship between his personal and professional life.This is because artistic performance requires strong emotional involvement, an intense psychological process and constant physical commitment.In addition to artistic training, musicians implicitly acquire several organizational roles that affect their mental health, which leads to an emotional imbalance.Musicians experience music performance anxiety, depression, and other worrisome conditions that are on the rise.These conditions are associated with stress, fear of failure and perfectionism.As most musicians are not familiar with means and techniques to help them cope with problems, prevention methods are recommended.Also, identifying and understanding the risk factors would help raise awareness about the conditions to which they are prone.Studies have shown that the beneficial methods include resilience, mindfulness and positive psychology, which, unlike the traditional deficit-oriented psychology, focus on the present moments and the positive aspects of the human being.