ANN ARBOR—Suffering from performance anxiety—stage fright? Learn how to deal with the problem at the University of Michigan School of Music’s lecture/demonstration, "Performance Anxiety and Related Career Problems," at 7:30 p.m. North Campus. The session is free and open to the public. Performance anxiety can happen to anyone, says U-M graduate and psychologist Julie Jaffee Nagel, who will moderate the session. Such anxiety can affect lawyers afraid to stand up in the courtroom, writers who can’t get a word down on the page, musicians, actors, athletes, test-takers and anyone from scout leaders to professionals presenting a program or their work. Among the professionals conducting the workshop are U-M School of Music professors Jonathan Shames and Anthony Elliott who will be joined by Harvey Falit and Jean-Paul Pegeron of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. A musician herself, Nagel has found that many musicians deal with their performance anxiety by using drugs such as beta blockers that stop symptoms including shaking, sweating and heart palpitations. While generally considered to be safe, Nagel says such drugs do nothing to eliminate the underlying psychological causes of stage fright or performance anxiety. "Certainly individuals sensitive to issues of rejection, loss and competition are internally primed for the external conditions of the performance profession," Nagel said. "Thus one can conceptualize performance anxiety not only as a psychological problem but also as a broader issue of survival (economic as well as emotional), further illustrating the potentially devastating and career-threatening components of this psychological nemesis." The lecture/demonstration is co-sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Music Outreach Program and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute.

E-mail: mjnesbit@umich.edu