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Artist Insight:
On Fear As The Fire That Keeps Us Us
6/7/2025

I reimagine my experience of fear as a positive voice keeping me safe, like a sort of fire that protects me–one I can use to motivate myself to overcome its burn.A call to action–the thought that everything that matters to me could be taken away–reframes picking up my viola to practice a difficult passage seem like child’s play. I am scared because I care, not because I am weak. From this stance, fear becomes a sort of radical honesty, one that is deeply compassionate, too. Fear, in this experience, is like a mirror, showing me intense clarity of my unresolved self, and glimpses of who I am meant to become.

Artist Insight:
Panic Practice - A Music Therapist Explains Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and Practicing: A Call For Music Therapist As Mediators In Classical Conservatory Culture
6/16/2025

Anxiety manifests differently across individuals and settings, but common patterns are defined within several diagnostic categories. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are each individually distinct, yet deeply related. Drawing from Comer’s Abnormal Psychology (2022), as well as personal experience navigating performance culture in a music conservatory, this paper compares these conditions while reflecting on how environments can compound or mitigate psychological harm.GAD involves continuous excessive worry across a range of topics for at least six months. Symptoms can include restlessness, lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, and muscle tension (Comer, 2022). Behaviorists suggest anxiety is learned and maintained through reinforcement, while cognitive theorists highlight distorted thought patterns and misaligned perceptions. Exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring are commonly used interventions. In the conservatory setting, chronic uncertainty about performance value, favoritism in instruction, and inequitable lesson time can provoke this kind of ongoing anxiety—especially when teachers subtly or overtly signal a student’s worth is conditional. I would like to see music therapists in conservatory roles, not to police relationships, but as informed mediators that hold that relationship accountable in a way that is supportive to the student and teacher’s growth.OCD is characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) aimed at reducing distress. These rituals can dominate a person’s life, often consuming an hour or more daily. While compulsions may provide short-term relief, they reinforce anxiety long term (Comer, 2022). In artistic training, this can take shape as perfectionistic habits—over-practicing, obsessive editing, or compulsive comparison and obtrusive thoughts—that begin to interrupt healthy development and self-trust. Hours alone in a practice room does not make perfect, and for an individual with GAD, PTSD, or OCD, this environment, if left unchecked, can encourage isolationism and distorted perceptions of experience. Imagine a music therapist role who could check in weekly, not to impose, but simply offer 15-30 minute check ins. How might the efficacy of practice time and enjoyment improve? If there was a positive correlation, would that influential pattern be reflected in increased job security in the fields of the arts? I wonder.Panic Disorder involves sudden and intense episodes of fear that reach a peak within minutes, accompanied by physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and shortness of breath. These can be cued or or without a cue, or stimulus, and often lead to avoidance behaviors (Comer, 2022). Reflecting on my own experience as a conservatory freshman, I now recognize that what I interpreted as personal weakness was likely untreated panic disorder, triggered by unsupportive faculty interactions and the pressure to perform under constant evaluation. Weeks went by where I would be mentally counting constantly from 1-10 like a bodhisattva to keep a feeling of being grounded, and to ward off panic attacks. When I confided in an instructor I was experiencing daily panic attacks, where I needed support and therapeutic guidance, I was met with dismissiveness and a pressure that taught me I wasn’t enough and didn’t belong or deserve to make music if I couldn’t keep my anxiety in check. I can only imagine how an informed musician trained in therapy could have helped me in that moment.PTSD develops after exposure to a traumatic event and includes re-experiencing, avoidance, negative mood shifts, and hyperarousal. In conservatories, students may be subjected to emotionally intense environments where humiliation is used as a motivational tool. I was once required to perform a concerto I had not memorized, after being scolded in front of my peers by a teacher who had insisted they attend my lesson. This weekly cycle of critique and exposure can lead to symptoms akin to PTSD, especially when compounded over time.While each condition has its own criteria and treatment approaches, the lines blur in real life, particularly under chronic stress. What begins as GAD can evolve into PTSD when environments repeatedly activate fear, diminish autonomy, and reward a romantic idea of resilience over healing. Music institutions must reckon with how scarcity culture and performance pressure can harm developing artists. Integrating trauma-informed supports—such as on-site music therapists—could create healthier, more sustainable models for creative growth.Reference
Comer, R. J. (2022). Abnormal psychology (11th ed.). Worth Publishers.