ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 introduces Jane, an advanced pianist who took part in the PhD research conducted by the author into music performance anxiety (MPA). Her case history/narrative relates her experiences not only of MPA, but of attentional-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from which she has suffered for more than five years (since her mid-teens) and which she felt was exacerbating her performance anxiety. Case formulation of the possible dynamics underlying the anxiety is given by the therapist, followed by a critical analysis of Jane’s comments which led to the diagnosis of social anxiety/social phobia. Her two treatments of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing are documented in detail, and pre-treatment and post-treatment assessments given by Jane. Treatment outcome was successful in alleviating her symptoms of both MPA and ADHD. Post-treatment Jane described her feelings: ‘I felt I’d been underneath a table for all of these years and now I’m above the table looking down upon it. I feel positive again, light and free … it feels like a detox’. A longitudinal outcome of therapy is also documented by the therapist.
