Why does it always turn into therapy?

In working with performers over the past many years, I've noticed something interesting.  Some sessions are purely technical in nature, where I find myself teaching skills or fine-tuning simple execution issues, but the real "breakthrough" events don't follow that pattern.

I don't want to name any names here, because I respect the privacy of everyone I coach, but I'll give you an example of how it goes.  I'm working with a singer, trying to get them to open up and be expressive.  Their hands seem to be glued to their sides for some reason.  No matter what I try, I can't get them to relax their shoulders and use their hands in a natural looking way.  Finally I say, "what would happen if you allowed your hands to be expressive?"  And they reply, "I can't move my hands - I've been told it makes me look like a dork."

Oh dear.

The breakthrough this person needs is to help them realize that they don't look like a dork when they use their hands, and in fact they (like most people) use their hands quite naturally all the time, with the strange exception of during performance.  The same kind of pattern applies to nearly every pathological habit I find in performers - they're always doing it for a reason!  The biggest problems are not usually not a matter of skill, except that it has required an awful lot of skill to maintain the weird performance behavior over the years.  It's a problem of mistaken beliefs, and the problem can't be fixed without taking care of the underlying mistaken belief.

That's why it tends to turn into therapy.  Therapy in this realm is when you change your beliefs.

One really common example is that a person has trouble being expressive.  They don't show passion, because they are terrified of being that vulnerable, and taking that much of a risk.  What they often don't understand is that they have so much to gain, and the risks are so small if not completely imagined, that in reality the choice is very simple.  Be expressive!  Take the risk!

The wonderful thing too is that getting over this kind of belief obstacle does a lot more than result in a better performance.  It tends to change the person deeply, and improve their whole life.  Performance skills, of course, are often the same skills you need to run the rest of your life.