Artist Coaching

The good days are good, but the bad days...

On the good days, there's nothing else like it. Maybe you feel it during a performance, during a rehearsal, or just in the practice room. Maybe you draw it with your pen, type it through your keyboard, or craft it with your hands. Whatever your art, it's in your blood. And in that flow state you feel completely alive in your work, like you're on top of the world.

But there's that other side to it. The mistake that you keep replaying in your head. The performance where your inner critic was louder than the orchestra. The audition where your nerves took over and you played it safe. The voice that tells you to give it all up after a bad review. The creeping sense that no matter how hard you work or how much you achieve, it's never quite enough.

There's a roadblock in your way, and it's holding you back from being the artist you know you can be.

What is Artist Coaching?

Here's the thing - roadblocks exist for a reason. They protect us from real dangers. But sometimes, when the danger has passed, nobody tells the roadblock it can stand down. And that's exactly where IFS can help.

In Artist Coaching, I bring the IFS model to the specific challenges that creatives face. It's forward-focused work, grounded in the present but aware of the past. It's not about going back and looking for old wounds - but if we find them along the way, we can use the tools of IFS to meet them, and help them heal.

Artist Coaching is about understanding the inner voices and patterns that shape how you show up in your work and your art right now, and helping them shift. We listen without judgment to the forces that keep holding you back. We work to understand why they're there, and how they're trying to help - and in doing so, open the door for them to change their ways.

We can do this because, at the center of all of these parts, there's something else: your Self — your calm, curious, and compassionate core, that’s already capable of leading your inner world toward healing. In our work together, we'll connect with your Self and use it to approach your parts with understanding and care.

This is what sets IFS apart from other types of artist coaching approaches. There are all kinds of ways to understand yourself, and identify the patterns and causes of what's holding you back. But understanding yourself in that way is only half the picture. IFS goes further, because it doesn't just help you understand your parts. By connecting with your Self, it helps your parts understand you.

We might work with the inner critic who turns every performance into a verdict. The perfectionist who won't let you enjoy what you've created. The part that freezes under pressure, or the one that pushes so hard it leads to burnout. The part afraid of being truly seen - or afraid that you're not good enough to deserve to be.

Whatever it is, we'll approach it the same way IFS approaches everything: with curiosity, without judgment, and with the understanding that every part of you has a reason for being there.

The tortured artist myth

A part of you might be saying right now, "I really want things to feel better, but if I'm not struggling, I can't create." There's this old idea that making great art requires suffering - that your wounds are the source of your power, and that healing them might cost you your edge. It's an idea that keeps a lot of artists stuck.

IFS gives us another option. The parts of you that carry anxiety, self-doubt, or perfectionism aren't the source of your artistry. They're protecting it - or trying to. And when those parts finally feel heard and safe, something remarkable tends to happen: the energy you've spent managing them becomes available for your work instead. You feel more creative, more present - not less. Your artistry is freed, not frozen.

You don't have to choose between healing and your art. In my experience - as both a therapist and a performer - the two support each other.

What can Artist Coaching help with?

  • Performance anxiety

  • Inner criticism and perfectionism

  • Self-doubt and imposter syndrome

  • Creative blocks

  • Vocal challenges

Artist Coaching can support you with challenges like:

  • Body tension

  • Burnout and sustainability

  • Audition and career anxiety

  • Artistic identity

  • Expat performing life

Who do I work with?

I work with artists of all kinds - opera singers like me, but also instrumentalists, actors, dancers, directors, writers, and other creative professionals, at both pre-professional and professional levels. I also work with artists who are navigating the particular challenges of building a life and career in a second country and language.

I bring to this work something that no purely clinical training can provide: lived experience. I was a full-time performing artist for many years, and I'm still performing today. I know what it means to carry your most vulnerable self into a performance. I know the specific weight of an audition, the loneliness of life on the road, the complicated relationship between artistic identity and personal identity, and the very particular fear that if you look too closely at what's driving you, it might stop working.

I've done the inner work myself - and it didn't cost me my art. It changed my relationship to it entirely. It gave me more space to be creative, to choose my own path, to make the art that I want to make in the ways that I want to make it. And I want to help you do the same.

Ready to move forward?

If you’re interested in learning more, let’s connect! You can schedule a free 15-minute intro call by filling out this form, or emailing me directly at: thomas@englishtherapyinberlin.com

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