PSYCHOTHERAPIST
In order to qualify as a psychotherapist, Virginia was required to do a placement in a psychotherapy/counselling centre and was fortunate to do this placement in ARC Cancer Care in Eccles St where she continues to work one morning a week. It is very helpful to work in other areas of psychotherapy, even though her primary focus would be on the psychology of performance and the problems and issues therein.
A keen interest in the workings of the psyche of musicians and performers led Virginia to pursue an MSc in Psychotherapy with an emphasis on Musical Performance Anxiety. Virginia specialises in working with performers who suffer from Performance Anxiety and she incorporates this work into her lecture series at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in addition to working privately at her private psychotherapy practice in Dublin.
BOOK
STAGE FRIGHT
“Turning Point Training Institute, (TPTI), the Dublin based college for the provision of MSc programmes in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy has great pleasure in launching the first in its series of Monographs. TPTI’s co-founders Kay Conroy and Mary Paula Walsh are delighted that international soprano and MSc graduate Virginia Kerr took the opportunity to write this ground breaking book. Her research findings and recommendations from her Masters thesis ‘The Value of Psychotherapy to Classical Singers in enabling them to deal with Performance Anxiety and Confidence Issues’ created the groundwork for the launch of ‘Stage Fright’”
Virginia was asked to write the book as the first in a new monograph series. It is a subject which is very relevant for performers today and nothing has been written specifically for singers. Given that singers are both instrument and instrumentalist in one and that the art of singing involves the complete person, rejection of a singer's voice can result in a feeling of rejection of the complete individual. Virginia believes that if one is aware of what is happening then it is not so alarming. The fear comes when a performer doesn't understand, or isn't aware, of the effects of performance anxiety.
in Dublin