Carol helped hundreds of performers and artists overcome mental health challenges and lead fulfilling creative lives. The invaluable expertise she gave to our organisation was gained through a career dedicated to the arts and improving the wellbeing of musicians and creators.

Honouring Dr Carol Chapman and Her Lasting Contribution to BAPAM

Carol was born in London in 1944. She played clarinet and piano and went to Manchester University to study psychology. After a year of research, she undertook a doctorate at Sheffield University and then became a psychology lecturer in the 1970s. She went on to work in publishing, then at Worcester college Oxford, and was closely involved with the setting up of National Life Stories at the National Sound Archive. She was deeply interested in musicians and open to all areas with a particular interest in jazz.

After furthering her training as a Counselling Psychologist in the 1990s, Carol specialised in working with artists, focusing on facilitating and enhancing performance as much as remedying problems. In an interview with BAPAM in 2018, she recalled,

“I’ve spent a lifetime amongst performers and have witnessed and experienced many of their difficulties and issues. When I decided to move from academic psychology to become a Counselling Psychologist and to work in performing arts I felt I had come home. I could bring together my own experiences learning music, many years of close contact with performer relatives, friends and colleagues, and add this to my therapeutic knowledge and skills to helping performers cope with their problems and fulfil themselves.

Performers are a joy to work with because they’re used to looking in to themselves and know themselves and their body quite well. They’re often highly disciplined and are used to working hard.

Anything I can do to further the lives of artists ultimately benefits their art, and this also benefits all of us who are enriched by it as well.”

Carol’s gift to BAPAM provides much valued ongoing support for our charity and the performing arts community she cared deeply about. A heartfelt thank you to Carol and her family for their support from the BAPAM team and those we support.

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Are you a physically disabled professional, student or amateur performing artist?��Researchers at University College London (UCL) are recruiting participants for a Performing Arts Medicine project investigating the experience of injury in disabled performing artists and exploring the challenges they face when accessing healthcare services.

The training and career of a performing artist can be physically and psychologically demanding. These pressures can be amplified for disabled performers, particularly as they may face challenges when trying to access healthcare services. Disabled performers are an underrepresented group for a variety of reasons and there is little research examining this issue. Factors such as increased injury risk or barriers to accessing healthcare may have an impact.��

Understanding more about these factors will help healthcare professionals and other stakeholders to better support disabled performing artists to manage injury, overcome health problems and practise��their performance art successfully.����

Participation involves an online interview with the researcher, answering questions about your performing art, and your experience of disability, injury and seeking and receiving support from healthcare professionals. To find out more and take part in the project, please email Sian Beesley at sian.beesley.21@alumni.ucl.ac.uk.

This study has been approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee. Approval ID Number: 15763-003.

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“Before stepping on stage, I close my eyes and mentally perform every bar, hearing and feeling each nuance.” — Yo-Yo Ma

Thoughts, feelings and images run through our minds as we approach important events. Do you mentally run through an upcoming audition, or important performance? Do your images and thoughts help you create the performances you want to deliver? If not, then you could be overlooking one of the most powerful tools for success: mental imagery.

For performing artists, mental imagery (MI) consists of guiding your images in a constructive positive way to enhance your performance in practise and on stage. Backed by science, mental imagery (MI) is an excellent tool to prime the brain and body for optimal performance.

What is Mental Imagery and why is it important?

• It is often called visualisation or mental rehearsal
• It involves using all of your senses (see, feel, hear, taste, smell) to rehearse your performance in your mind
• MI is a skill which can be learned

Structured MI programmes are supported by science and proven by elite performers, to help refine technical skills, deepen emotional expression, and manage stage-related anxiety.

Mental imagery provides a valuable opportunity to prepare for and practise dealing with problems, challenges, or upcoming performances in your mind before you tackle them in real life. As conductor Gustavo Dudamel highlights, “I imagine the entire orchestra; then my part fits naturally into that picture.”

Scientific Support for Mental Imagery

Recent neuroimaging techniques have enabled researchers to examine the neural underpinnings of MI in the brain. MI has been found to use similar neural mechanisms used in perception and motor control, which is relevant for performing artists too.

In a review of the literature on the benefits of imagery use for peak performance in sport, Janjigian (2024) concluded that MI is a rigorously supported psychological tool for athletes across all skill levels to enhance performance. Janjigian (2024) found evidence to support psychological, physiological and neural mechanisms, underpinning it’s effectiveness.

An exploratory study by Gregg, Clark and Hall (2008) into musicians’ use of mental imagery found that, musicians reported employing imagery to limit distractions, recover from an error, maintain mental toughness, demonstrate confidence, and overcome mental and physical fatigue.

Furthermore, performance majors indicated using imagery significantly more frequently to see themselves overcoming a difficult situation than non-performance majors, while voice musicians employed imagery to see goal achievement more often than instrumental musicians.

Key Benefits of Mental Imagery for Performing Artists

Build Confidence – imagining yourself performing a piece you have been practising, will help give you a feeling of mastery, which in turn boosts your confidence.

Managing Performance Anxiety – Imagining yourself feeling calm, focused and confident on stage, can rewire your typical stress response. Repeated mental exposure to performance scenarios reduces fear and equips you with coping strategies, if you start to feel nervous.

Performance Preparation – Mentally rehearse how you would like to perform (e.g. calm and focused). Imagine the theatre, the audience and use all your senses to create a real-life experience.

Enhancing Expressivity – mentally rehearse expression and dynamics of piece to deepen interpretation. Use to plan and explore the expression and message of the piece you are playing.

Enhancing Technical Skills – MI allows you to rehearse and address tricky passages, before you physically perform them. Mentally imagining them, strengthens neural connections related to timing, coordination and accuracy.

Reinforcing Muscle Memory – kinaesthetic imagery, feeling the tension, release, and flow of your movements, is a brilliant way of boosting learning of new skills. It speeds up motor learning by replaying movement patterns in the brain.

Key To Effective Mental Imagery

To maximise your imagery training effectiveness focus on:

• Vividness and detail
• Controllability – being able to control and manipulate your images as you want to, a bit like editing a film in your mind
• Using all senses (see, feel, hear, smell, and taste) and emotions

Tips for getting Started

1. Practice makes perfect. Imagery is a skill that needs to be practiced to be effective.
2. Aim for quality practice. It is important to start with brief high quality mental imagery training sessions. Effective imagery is mentally tiring, so aim for quality images over short periods of time and increase your training times as you master the skill.
3. Identify your scenario to image. Pick a specific performance you want to image.
4. Add detail and make it as realistic as possible. Imagine the stage, the lights, the audience, the sound of the others performers around you, taking a sip of cool refreshing water.
5. Include all your senses. What can you see, hear, feel, smell, touch and taste? Feel your body moving as you would when you perform.
6. Imagine setbacks and mentally rehearse your response to them.
7. Make MI a habit. While brushing your teeth in the morning imagine a few bars of a current piece/a few lines of a play. Spend a couple of minutes before practice/rehearsal imagining any difficult passages you will be practicing. Whilst commuting home after a show, do a MI review of your performance.

Additional suggestions

• Keep a MI training journal – note what you imaged, rate how it went and what you learned.
• Use guided audio scripts, or even better, record your own to stay consistent.

Read more posts in this series: Performance Psychology articles by Dr Anna Waters

Step by step visualisation exercises: BAPAM: Visualisation Techniques for Performers

References

Gregg, M. J. and Clark, T. and Hall, C. R. (2008). Seeing the sound: an exploration of the use of mental imagery by classical musicians. Musicae Scientiae, 12 (2) pp. 231-247. ISSN 1029-8649 (print) 2045-4147 (online).

Holmes, P. S., & Collins, D. J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13(1), 60–83.

Janjigian, Kiersten. “Picture perfect: the science behind mental imagery for peak performance & best practices for mental imagery protocols in sport” Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity, vol. 19, no. s1, 2024, pp. 20230027. https://doi.org/10.1515/jirspa-2023-0027

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BAPAM was represented by CEO Claire Cordeaux, Ģ��tv Director Dr Finola Ryan, who presented in at least 4 panels and workshops, and Performing Arts Medicine Physiotherapist and Educator Dr Sarah Upjohn, who presented her work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, supporting physiotherapists working with orchestral musicians: A-Symphony-of-Good-Sense

Day one had a strong focus on occupational health, and Dr Finola Ryan joined the international panel with PAMA President Elect Dr David Hinkamp, to agree on the risks to health in the performing arts, the neglect of occupational health and the need for health surveillance and registries to better understand the longer term impact of interventions to prevent poor health. It was good to see such a strong international alignment with BAPAM’s own thinking and to hear about the developing opportunities for collaborative work. Our own workshop looked at using a risk assessment format to identify and quantify hazards in the performance environment, and take effective steps to mitigate risk and support creative workers’ health.

Some of the key learning points for us from research presented were:

• The link between posture and TMJ problems in woodwind instrument players
• The impact of identity on musicians’ health
• At least two studies demonstrating the impact of exercise on physical injury and performance anxiety after a short 6 week intervention

Dr Anna Detari from the Royal College of Music presented an excellent piece of work following a qualitative study of neurodivergent musicians and has kindly offered to do a longer session on this for our clinicians at BAPAM. Dr June Sheren also presented her work on the menopause and musicians alongside other experts. Her talk was very well received at our own CPD session earlier this year.

There was a real focus on circus arts later in the conference with a brilliant keynote from the Clinical Director of Cirque du Soleil which described their approach to healthcare, including a salutary lesson on listening to your artists when designing your programme. We also heard from a group who had been successfully advocating for recognition of circus arts and how there is a developing legislative framework to support safe working practices.

As always there was lots to reflect on and to follow up with new friends and colleagues internationally. Over the last few years it has been exciting to see the PAMA community come together to develop core competencies for performing arts clinicians, and opportunities for collaborative approach. Performing arts medicine is a small specialty, but one that has become increasingly established, and it is very valuable to connect with international colleagues to learn from new research and develop approaches together.

It is always heartening to hear the high esteem in which BAPAM is held internationally, and to have confirmation of our unique service across the world. We are grateful to have such a warm reception when we attend PAMA and that so many people want to collaborate. It is an honour that our Ģ��tv Director Dr Finola Ryan has been selected as a PAMA Board member and will be co-chairing the next PAMA conference in New York. We look forward to many more years of working together with PAMA.

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A new study led by researcher Jeordie Shenton at the University of Portsmouth is investigating the prevalence and contributory factors of substance use amongst working musicians. As part of the study, people who earn money from playing, creating and/or performing music (either regularly or sporadically) are invited to complete a survey by answering questions about their use of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine products; prescription and/or over-the-counter medicines; and other substances (including recreational drug use). This survey is open internationally to all working musicians, including instrumentalists, vocalists, DJs, composers, songwriters and producers, from any genre or industry.

Participant information and survey:

This study has research ethics committee approval from the University of Portsmouth.

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After nailing your audition and landing a fantastic role, do you ever get that sinking feeling?

That now you have to deliver?

Do you start to think that everyone else would be better at this role than you?�� Why did they pick you?�� You must have just been lucky this time and soon they will find out that you are not good enough.

Fast forward to the first day of rehearsals … You start to feel like you just don’t fit in, that you don’t deserve to be there in the room with all these other performers, who clearly know what they are doing.�� Everyone around you seems to be better than you and confident.�� As the first night approaches, you begin to worry about living up to expectations?

Do some, or all of these thoughts resonate with you? If so, they could be your imposter syndrome talking.

Imposter syndrome (IS) is really common, with research suggesting that about 80% of people (Bravata et al., 2020), experience feelings of Imposter Syndrome at some point in their life. It seems to be especially widespread amongst those performing on stage and is something performers are always coming to see me to work on.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Imposter Syndrome is a pattern of behaviour, rather than a clinical condition and was first coined in the late 1970s.�� It exists on a spectrum with some performers having very few experiences of it and others feeling almost crippled by it.�� It is often characterised by doubting one’s abilities, downplaying achievements and worrying about being found out as a fraud.

It is most common in very ambitious, high achieving people and especially among those who are prone to perfectionism.�� These traits are commonly found in those performing on stage, which could be why it is so prevalent in the world of performing arts.

Imposter syndrome as a double-edged sword

In my work as a performance psychologist, I have noticed that while preparing for a performance, many performers’ patterns of thinking and beliefs align with the patterns of thinking associated with Imposter Syndrome.

Let’s use an example to bring this to life. Imagine you get a call to say you have an audition/important performance in a week’s time.

Would any of these ring true for you around your preparation?

• Aiming for the perfect performance
• Obsessing over minor details
• Expecting consistently flawless performances
• Avoidance of trying new things for fear it won’t be perfect
• Not acknowledging and celebrating success, as always moving on to the next performance

Do any of these resonate with you?

If so, the same things that may be pushing you to be ambitious and successful, may leave you struggling with Imposter Syndrome.

This is because you are aiming for the impossible, leading you to feel like you never achieve what you are striving for.

The thing is, nothing is ever perfect. No one is able to deliver consistently flawless performances.

Confidence

Confidence is built through demonstrating that we can perform, or master something. If you never feel like you are performing successfully because you are constantly striving for perfection, you will not be truly�� building your underlying confidence. Your confidence will fluctuate depending on how you feel that day.

Many high-profile performers have opened up about their experiences of Imposter Syndrome including Olivia Coleman, Lupita Nyong’o, David Tennant, Ellie Goulding, Antonio Pappano and Vilde Frang.

Tom Hanks, highlighted how it feels perfectly:

No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, “How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?”

As we can see, many hugely successful performers still feel worthless despite their success.

For me, it is important to think about how to harness the positive aspects of imposter patterns of thinking and behaviour. To manage them more effectively and so, be able to deliver your best performance.

At the same time, it is imperative as a performer that you build value in yourself, building your self-esteem and your confidence so that even when a performance isn’t perfect, you know that you are where you should be.

Here are a few suggestions you can try to combat Imposter Syndrome:

1. Recognise Imposter Syndrome is happening – and choose to do something about it.

2. Develop a sense of feeling valuable now – just as you are.�� This instantly gives you power.

3. Be proud of yourself when you do your best, even if you made a mistake.

4. Reach out to others – making a connection can help manage feelings of isolation.

5. Notice if you are engaging in safety behaviours – Safety behaviours are used consciously, or unconsciously, as we attempt to prevent fears from coming true and to feel more comfortable in situations we are anxious about.�� Some common safety behaviours and how to deal with them are:

• Over practice – acknowledge it when it happens and take time to rationally plan your practice and preparation.�� Challenge any beliefs around needing to practice more than others.
• Procrastination – notice if you are procrastinating ��and explore your motivations for not starting. Do you fear it will not be perfect because you do not know how to practice effectively? Or because the practice will be hard work? Or is it something else entirely?�� Be ready to manage the usual distracting thoughts that are likely to pop into your head, before you start to practice. Make things easy on yourself. Have a really easy first step and just get started.

6. Part of the Imposter Syndrome model (Clance & O’Toole, 1988) suggests following a performance, performers can be quick to discount positive feedback. These suggestions can help:

• Celebrate your success. Write it down and make it visible.
• Do a post-performance review after each performance. Note down a couple of things you were happy with, a couple that didn’t go so well and your key learning point to take into your next performance.�� Then draw a line under the it and move on, taking confidence from what went well.

7. Accept trust and support from those who truly care about you.

Read more posts in this series: Performance Psychology articles by Dr Anna Waters

References

Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., Nelson, R. S., ��Cokley, K. O., & Hagg, H. K. (2020). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252–1275

Clance, P. R. and O’Toole, M. A. (1988). The imposter phenomenon: An internal barrier to empowerment and achievement. In E. D. Rothblum and E. Cole (Eds.), Treating Women’s Fear of Failure. New York: Haworth Press.

Dr Anna Waters

With over 20 years expertise supporting the performance and mental health of performing artists and athletes,����has been fortunate to work with prominent classical musicians, opera singers, ballet dancers, recording artists, stand-up comedians and actors. She has enjoyed working with national music conservatories, ballet companies and television companies.

Anna loves drawing on her experience of both the performing arts and sporting worlds to help facilitate her work with her clients. She believes that there are many similarities between both arenas, with performers being talented and ambitious people, whose lives are spent working towards big events. Where each day is filled with training, practice, and preparation for the next big event, where they are required to consistently deliver their best performance under the scrutiny of the world.

With a strong academic background, including a PhD in applied sport psychology, Anna spent seven years working alongside Professor Steve Peters sharing The Chimp Model ideologies. This combined with her sport psychology backgrounds forms foundations to her work.

Anna is a Chartered member and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and is registered as a practitioner with Ģ��tv (BAPAM).

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