Performing Artists

As we engage with the tasks of our lives and with one and other, we quite naturally perform as ourselves. We follow and interpret a narrative: an constantly evolving story of ourselves founded on deeply-held, largely unconscious beliefs about who we are, and on our expectations of what the world holds for us. Much as with interpreters of a dramatic script or a musical score, our living performance of our “self-narrative” is continually informed and shaped by dynamic interaction with the presence of others. However, our audience is as much imagined as directly perceived: It exists as much within us as outside our being. The quality and intensity of our connection to who watches and listens, and the degree of vulnerability that we may feel under such observation operate powerfully in our unconscious mind. They deeply effect how we select and present aspects of the whole of ourselves and they ultimately determine much of the behavior that makes our presence known in the world.

A brief model of the Self and Personality
and some thoughts on their management in the social environment

The Self As Performer

All individuals enact the protagonist of their life, which can be called their “Self.” This complex term (which I capitalize) and to which entire libraries worth of thoughtful writing have been dedicated, can be most simply understood as our living model of our own identity, one which we maintain within ourselves, develop and modify, and continually though unconsciously, reference throughout our lives. Our Self operates according to a -narrative, a complex, storyline in which we are cast as the central character. It is held mainly in the unconscious mind, growing and evolving through a dynamic relationship between our internal experience of ourselves and the external circumstances of our environment. Our Self functions simultaneously as creator, administrator and principal actor of our “self-narrative;” it is constantly impacted and oriented by some sense of the accumulated history and future direction of that story, by our sense of where we are coming from, as well as deep concern for where it is headed.

Our role as concerned (and often anxious) guardian and curator of our being throughout our infinitude of life experiences engenders a defining framework, a model of ourselves which we can call a “Self-Concept” (historically referred to as “Ego”). Our main character, the “Self” references aspects of our concept throughout our life story. The Self-Concept can be understood as an aggregate of internally-held (therefore mainly unconscious) beliefs about who we are (and must be) in order to survive and thrive within the world as we perceive it. It continually evolves in response to our accumulating life experience, primarily by way of both historic and present relationships with others, and according to the cultural values that frame these relationships. The brick and mortar of our Self-concept is therefore comprised of those persons and things external to us to which we feel affiliated, and from which we can continually extract a sense of our distinct identity in an ever-changing world. We are the general organizers of the accumulated subjective experience which continually informs and modifies our Self-Concept; the beliefs about ourselves which the Self-concept represents then determine to a large extent with what and with whom we will interact in our social environment, as well as the very quality of the experience that takes place.

As are the protagonists, the main interpreters and principal actors in the outside world of our Self-Concept, our performance of the main character role according to an internal, unconscious model of ourselves is further informed and reinforced by our cognition, our intermittent conscious awareness of ourselves. This comprises what we remember, think and expect. Our narrative is then further made real and concrete by our behavior, by what we say and do at any given moment and by our registering its impact upon others.

To summarize the Self according to this actor- in-performance metaphor: Much of the time we are enactors of our Self: we live and breathe our own main characters within our own evolving story of our lives, while we are also principal contributors to both the general conceit and much of the specifics of our own plotline; we act also as our own casting directors in choosing participants in our relationships, and as stage directors in maintaining oversight of our performance, particularly of the effectiveness of our portrayal of our own main character, our Self.

Personality

Thereby, as we enact our Selves according to each present episode in our internal storyline, we are also attuned to and responding to an audience, to who is before us and what we sense to be their requirements for us in each situation; we engage others in sustaining and reinforcing the our main character’s portrayal of the self-narrative which we hold within ourselves. In this endeavor, our personality operates as the most outward manifestation of this engagement. It is that most external layer of ourselves through which we make certain aspects of the whole of ourselves known to others in a given moment. We enact ourselves through our personalities, much as actors in ancient Greek theater acted through masks which portrayed the primary characteristics of their character and projected its voice to the amphitheater. Personality consists of not only our choice of content and style in our language and discourse, but perhaps more tellingly, our use of the physical instruments through which some aspect of our Self-Concept is channeled to others, (to our audience). Our body language, our facial expressions and our voice tone and contour are chief components among the physical instruments of the personality through which we make ourselves known in the world.

As actors we automatically, habitually and largely unconsciously take our bearings as to the moment in our own unfolding story, as well as to our place in our current surroundings (the stage on which we stand). We are always aware, at some level, of the presence of others, and as such, we then outfit elements of our identity and edit our expression of inner feeling to engage the instruments of our personality in a way that feels most appropriate and effective within a given circumstance. Common social interaction can be understood as a reciprocal, sometimes multilateral endeavor on the part of a number of actors operating simultaneously. They share a stage and engage the dynamics of perception and response to the presence of another or other “self-actor(s).” Each individual engaged in social interaction is acting through his/her personality, realizing some aspect of a self-narrative own narrative while simultaneously serving as an audience to the others present.

They comprise both our audience of separate, autonomous beings, actors of themselves, as they simultaneously serve as our audience, as mirrors which reflect back to us something of the very images that we maintain internally of our own selves. In doing so, each participant in social interaction quite naturally and fluidly opts to assemble and display just a part of his/her wide range of his/her available personality repertoire: We will all tend to choose those facets of our personalities which will best convey to others primarily aspects of our being which we ourselves value, and also judge to be valuable in the eyes of others. At the same time, participants in social interaction naturally protect and obscure those of their characteristics which they value less and judge to be less valued by others, thereby to avoid dreaded feelings of shame, of vulnerability to failure on life’s stage, the possible indifference or outright rejection of the audience.

Psychodynamic theory has long held that from within the our internal experience of ourselves we generate “self-representations” that is, characteristic elements of our of our identity which range from the most attractive and immediately embraceable to those aspects of ourselves most troubling (and least attractive) to ourselves, and likely to others as well. It is particularly these latter characteristics, especially those which seem to belong to our essence and therefore seem not to be optional, which tend to elude our ongoing awareness, that is, to be “disowned” and aspects are the most likely to be experienced externally, that is, as the perspective held by other persons about us.

This is the essence of that distinctly human psychological dynamic called “projection,” a phenomenon which can produce an ongoing stream of “performance anxiety” for most individuals engaged in regular social interactions Though it is a potentially problematic emotional component, such projection-based anxiety is generally well-modulated by a natural, fluid back and forth dynamic by which individuals involved in social interaction may in turn serve as performers, and then as the audience. In normal discourse, therefore, that most psychologically challenging aspect of formal performing, which is related to a sense of sharply-increased scrutiny placed on the Self, may hardly impact each of the participants as such. Here, the quite disparate roles of performer and audience are diffused; the onus of each individual’s potential vulnerability to intense or unwanted exposure tends to be evenly distributed by the laws of reciprocity, by simple give and take.

The dilemma of the performing artist:

These life-as-a-stage scenarios extend quite naturally to all manner of performance on the stage as in life. For example, musicians who transform written or memorized compositions or spontaneously improvised ideas into sound are representing to themselves as well as to others, something of their private internal connection to the meaning within the music , and thereby, something also of their self-narrative. The enactment of this deeply subjective experience can be understood as a cornerstone of artistry in performance. It follows that, as with persons in regular social interactions, when musicians are among other performers creating or recreating music for themselves, they are involved in a specialized form of social interaction via the medium of sound. As such, they are simultaneously attuned to their internal self-experience within the music, while also communicating and responding to one and other. Quite as in the case of non-musical social discourse, the performer and audience relationship here is, for the most part, fluid and reciprocal; therefore relatively little potential is present for any one individual to experience the intense psychological burden of being a distinct performer in a unilateral dynamic with a distinct audience.

In all this, I do not regard the phenomena of individuals-as-performers operating via -programmed selection and enactment of selected facets of themselves as any indication of a lack of “center,” or of some diminished integrity, as if some absolute consistency of personality, regardless of context, were an ideal. In my view, it is not an accurate nor is it a helpful perspective to view social enactments of an individual as a mark per se of some disingenuousness, of a conscious or unconscious intent to manipulate, distort or even deceive.

The “multiplicity of selves” that we present in diverse social spheres represents a kind of repertoire of our myriad characteristics, constantly mixed and remixed according to the moment. As such, they can be understood as a key part of our natural, constantly-evolving relational skill set, with which we can bring to our endeavors and our relationships those combinations of our individual attributes most competent to meet the perceived demands of each and every social situation.

In addition to being a key tool of social efficacy, the enactment of selected parts of our identity serves the fundamental human need to define and maintain a living psychological boundary which supports our sense of Self as distinct from others. By exercising our faculties for making ourselves known to others in just certain ways, we protect ourselves from feelings of impingement, and from the vulnerability to an anxiety that we are likely to experience when a broad range of our many characteristics may be randomly exposed to a broad range of the unknown within others.

However, when by circumstance or choice, individuals unaccustomed to doing so must enact the role of the designated performer for a designated audience, the natural ways by which they experience themselves in the social world inevitably undergo dramatic and sometimes problematic shifts. Even an occasional such circumstance, and even one requiring performance or presentation of simple, concrete material, is experienced by many as a daunting and even overwhelming trial. Thus, studies often demonstrate that for many, public speaking is among the most stressful of all life events.

On the other hand, for those on a path in which performing is a constant way of life, the stress and its attendant challenges to an individual’s sense of competence is likely to be more protracted; it may ebb and flow according to context, and may be attenuated by a range of psychological faculties and coping skills that a performing artist acquires through experience.

Whatever the formal performance situation may be, perhaps the key problematic psychological component present in a role shift from that of fluid social enactor to that of active performer before an intent audience is one related to loss of control. Though anxiety over the possibility of the loss of some control over one’s ability to perform competently seems the most apparent psychological challenge confronting the performing artist, such dread does not arise out of a dynamic vacuum. Rather, performance anxiety may be deeply connected to an individual’s sense and experience of just who may comprise his/her audience.

All participants in social interactions are constantly, automatically making determinations as to the identity and disposition of an individual or aggregate of individuals present before them. From a vast array of discernable physical characteristics and affective signals emanating from all co-participants each individual derives complex extrapolations, “constructions” of how others may regard him/her at any given moment. On the other hand, in most traditional, formal audience to performer situations, in which audience members are minimally interactive with the performer, the possibilities for the performer to carry out a customary “sounding out” of other individuals present is vastly reduced; often the aggregate audience itself is far too heterogeneous to be assessed. Thereby, the large questions of just who his observers and listeners are, and what predispositions, current feelings and reactions toward her/him and the performance may be present, are to some degree well beyond his/her capacity to directly “control” through the usual social engagement mechanisms of his/her personality. Into this information and interaction vacuum comes steps the performer’s imagination (sometimes termed, “fantasy”), accompanied by a sharply increased tendency for the performer’s sense of his audience to become even more deeply infused with the superimpositions of his/her own internal, often self-critical faculties, that is, projections. To site just one typical aspect of this dynamic, the performer’s imaginings may focus upon any prior knowledge and sensibilities that each audience member may bring to their watching and listening, which can easily translate into a sense that these persons’ acuities will necessarily be directed toward absolute value judgments.

As with many troubling psychodynamic phenomena, entrenched, certain recognized concrete external realities underscore the feeling from within of threat: Indeed, the performing arts world is well-stocked with officially-appointed and self-styled critics, who often do watch, listen, speak up and write with the clear intent to judge. Depending therefore on the history and quality of a performer’s relationship to her/himself, above all on the intensity and content of that individual’s “internal critic(s),” the barely discernable external evidence of an audience’s physical presence may impact a performer’s unconscious psyche with a myriad of unanswerable questions, provoking intense primal anxiety as to just who is present and watching and listening: friend or foe?

It is not a given that such performance anxiety, or “stage fright,” will present an acute problem, or for that matter, any particular kind of challenge for a given performing artist. The issue presents itself along a wide spectrum of intensity, and may ebb and flow within the trajectory of each individual’s career experience. Indeed, there are some who seem to relish public exposure and the possibility of intense scrutiny. Nonetheless, for most performers the exertion of presenting to the public, on a regular basis, a body of art with which one is deeply identified, via rigorously circumscribed parts of oneself, is apt to exact a considerable cumulative toll on the psyche. Individuals with prolonged life experience in this realm may eventually find that some manner of rebalancing, some reorganizing process may be need to be undertaken in order to revitalize their sense of being a continuous whole person.

It has been wisely observed that all performers must at some point leave the stage and retreat to their dressing room; that in its security they can remove make-up and costume, slowly reclaim their essence, and permit select others access to interact with that core self.

Over time the layering and intensity of performing artists’ self-functioning on stage, as in the rest of their lives, can become quite dense and entangled, and thus, difficult to differentiate from some continuous core identity. When psychotherapy is properly conducted in a way safely insulated from the demands and constraints of roles that the performer must enact on the external stages of her/his life, it can indeed provide that very “dressing room” within which to rediscover, reconstitute and cultivate the essential Self.

At certain junctures in their lives, performing artists may also wish also to examine key issues surrounding the nature of their career ambition and of the whole of the life trajectory it has set in motion. Questions may arise as to how each performer’s Self-concept operates within the framework of her/his broader identity, and of how a performing career fits within the larger context of an individual’s entire personal history and sense of future direction. To shed some light on this a performer may, for example, seek insight into how his/her performing activity was first set in motion, and to discern both the positive and negative elements that have motivated and sustained it throughout.

As performing careers exist in a realm in which the quality of each individual’s achievement can be difficult to determine and quantify in concrete terms, and is largely subject to the fluctuations of external validation; in which a lifetime of energy may be invested in pursuing markers of success which may seem elusive, or when achieved, prove nonetheless ephemeral, the psychological challenges to the participants are distinct and sometimes quite acute and unremitting.

Thus, at that tipping point at which individuals sometimes answer a call to a deeper exploration of themselves, and begin to move toward the goal of improving the quality of their fit to their current and future lives, they can create with a psychotherapist, precisely the secure environment for the kind of careful, sustained attention that can yield long-lasting positive changes.

My work with performing artists is founded upon a broad range of analytic theories and clinical models integrated to insight drawn from my personal history as a performer.

In my view, each psychological challenge present in the performer’s task of realizing a given work can be seen to represent something of the dilemmas present also in the relationship of the artist to him/herself and to others throughout a broad range of life situations.

As with all my clients, I recognize that those psychological dilemmas brought to the work in therapy, and which relate to being a performing artist, are present in each individual’s life with their own specific qualities of complexity and intensity, even as they are in some way part of the whole of universal human experience.

In the moment of performance something of te whole of ones Self is concentrated through intense identoification of the material (script/score) at hand and presented to an audience. It’s as if the whole on what is normally an open and  fluis self-narrative over  the course of a life, is played out in the course of eacH performance.