Actor’s Performance Enhancement EMDR Therapy

Common Concerns List:

• Worries about memorizing lines

• Stage fright

• Dealing with distractions in performance

Your Purpose and Tools as an Actor

An actor’s goal is to become true to the character he is interpreting, based on the work of the playwright or screen writer and his own creative understanding. As Shakespeare put it, “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.” Thus, an actor’s tools include his voice, body, heart, mind, understanding, and experience.

How an EMDR Performance Therapist can help with Acting Challenges

The process of getting into and out of character, bringing forth the naturalness of the character in his or her human complexity, is the focus of Performance Enhancement work with actors. This is the creative part of the Performance Enhancement process. The Special Edge an EMDR Therapist has in Helping You However, a key value of working with an EMDR therapist lies in their ability to assist in resolving performance issues related to previous stress or trauma that are blocking an actor from being their best. These traumas could include:

• Harsh comments by a critic
• Forgetting lines
• Challenges with a director
• Being ignored, or not-fully-seen, by an important “other”
• Letting down one’s fellow actors in some way
• Or early trauma that is connected through the neural networks to the current issue

Those traumas cause performance blocks or glitches in the use of the actor’s tools

To neglect these issues is to neglect your own excellence, and tether your potential to limitation. Overcoming these limitations brings increased freedom, and with that, greater success and joy in your passion for acting. All actors want to pursue new challenges, reach deeper and higher in the art of expressing their character. That may mean facing new fears. A Certified EMDR therapist specializing in Performance Enhancement can be a great choice to consult for this new exploration, discovery and attainment.

Also see general Performance Enhancement Back to Psychotherapy Specialties