4.
Therapy for Actors + Entertainment Industry Professionals
Pursuing a career in the entertainment industry may be accompanied by victories, but also unique challenges. Whether you’re an actor, screenwriter, director, producer, production assistant, musician, or pursuing any of the other meaningful careers in the entertainment industry, I’m so glad you’ve found your way here.
So what do I mean by unique challenges?
You knew what you were getting into, right?
Well-meaning friends and family may say, "Well, you knew what you were getting into." Kick that unhelpful statement to the curb. Suffering doesn't have to be a rite of passage in this town. We CAN pursue an acting career and mentally and emotionally THRIVE.
Athletes train the mental and emotional game. Hey, entertainment industry professionals, so can we.
Nice to Meet You
I'm a licensed therapist who is passionate about supporting
entertainment industry professionals.
I have been in private practice for the past 15 years and specialize in working with actors, entertainment industry professionals, and their families.
Janelle, what do you know about acting? Great question. Upon graduating from college, I hit the ground running and jumped into the "biz" of acting. And I don’t know about you, but there were times when my acting career felt great, and times when it felt really challenging.
Many times, I have heard an actor say, "You can't really get it unless you've done it."
It can feel overwhelming to try to explain to a therapist how the entertainment industry works, or why it sometimes feels like an emotional rollercoaster. As a therapist, I pull from an intimate knowledge not only of the business, but from lived experience and knowing exactly what it is like to courageously pursue your acting hopes and dreams, with all of the highs and lows that accompany such a pursuit.
I also specialize in counseling entertainment industry teens, providing support for balancing school and set life, the in-between and pursuing the next booking, as well as navigating on-set life. Additionally, it is crucial to establish positive self-esteem and identity, as the pursuit of a teen acting career often collides with the adolescent developmental stage of identity formation.
Watch Janelle's video story
in which she opens up about getting cut from The Twilight Saga just days before the premiere.
Does supporting our emotional and mental approach improve performance?
Athletes train with sports psychologists for a reason, as they know that mental stamina and resiliency training is crucial for practice and performance.
For actors, their industry is just as competitive. And yet, actors rarely stop to consider the ways that the mental approach can improve the craft and management of their careers.
I am in the trenches with you and actively integrating my training as a therapist with my observations of the current acting landscape.
I have observed that there is a HUGE VOID when it comes to equipping entertainment industry professionals with the mental and emotional skills they need to enhance their skills and careers.
A psychological and counseling framework allows us to provide support for the ways our personal histories collide with the entertainment industry; issues of identity; underlying systems dynamics; mood pieces and grief; emotional regulation, self-soothing, and coping skills; addressing issues of chronic rejection, disappointment, and hits to self-esteem; developing positive self-esteem and identity; and enhancing performance.
So what does counseling for entertainment industry professionals look like?
It is traditional "talk therapy," but with a psychoeducational emphasis that equips actors, screenwriters, producers, musicians, and so many other professionals with the tools and coping skills needed to thrive in the pursuit of entertainment industry careers.
Awareness
We bring awareness to the dynamics at play in the pursuit of an entertainment industry career.
Validation:
We validate your experiences in the entertainment industry. Yes, what you are feeling makes total sense!
To Do:
We explore what to do so that we can emotionally thrive in the pursuit of an entertainment industry career. Check out a few examples:
1. How do we build a resilient (instead of a vulnerable) pyramid? 2. How do we stabilize the other areas of our lives? How does structure help to put bumpers around the experience of swinging from one extreme to another in an entertainment industry career? 3. How does identifying “what matters more to us” help us to downgrade our entertainment industry career’s narcissistic influence in our lives? 4. How can we be incredibly happy in our lives WHILE we pursue entertainment industry careers? 5. What does it mean to be an emotional skills superhero? Do we perceive ourselves as capable or incapable when it comes to managing our internal, emotional world? 6. How do we HOLD TWO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME? Holding both the painful realities of our careers, while also changing the ways that we relate to our careers? 7. We will create a road map for emotional regulation and self-soothing. 8. We will talk about the ways entertainment industry professionals often misplace their attachment needs on their careers (and other players, a-hem, your agent). 9. We will empower the development of meaningful relationships in our lives that are appropriately responsive to our needs. 10. We will discuss the RECOVERY OF SELF as the #1 WAY entertainment industry professionals heal from codependency. 11. We will discuss the ways in which family members are also in a relationship with your entertainment industry career, creating space for the "Us" to talk about how it's really going. 12. We will explore why entertainment industry professionals are tempted to avoid community, as well as why community is really, really important (especially on our bad days as actors). 13. We will create a game plan for “coping ahead” and outline the four major areas of emotional rehearsal. 14. We will discuss how to shift to more helpful ways of relating to rejection, as well as removing the threat from rejection. We can experience success and rejection at the same time. 15. We will identify the top cognitive errors for actors, as well as explore how helpful cognition emphasizes our capability and resiliency.
Oh my gosh, you’re still reading. AWESOME!
Here are some examples:
The Actor's Mental Health Playbook.
A sneak peek inside an
actor's therapy session.
Okay, now that we’ve talked a little about what counseling is for, let’s talk a little bit about what you can expect.
1. 50 minutes devoted totally to you where you can talk about anything and everything going on in your life. 2. A safe place where there isn’t any judgment. 3. A confidential space. What you say in the room, stays in the room (outside issues regarding safety). 4. We can meet in person, online, or a combination of both options, whatever is the best fit for you. 5. We can meet once a week, every other week, as needed, etc., following your lead as far as frequency of appointments. As entertainment industry professionals, our schedules are frequently changing at the last minute. 6. If we meet for the first time and it doesn’t feel like a good fit, I totally get it. The most important part of counseling is that you find someone that you can open up to about anything and everything. If it’s not me, I will refer you to some of my rock star colleagues and help you get connected.
So what's the first step?
I am here to walk you through every step of the process. See below for a step-by-step guide.
Initial Phone Call
We will go over a few questions and make sure that this is the best fit for your unique counseling goals.
Schedule Appointment
We will schedule an initial appointment. Absolutely no pressure here. Think of it as a “trial run” in which you get a feel for the process.
Good fit?
After the initial appointment, take your time to think it through. Remember, you are in the driver’s seat. It is important that you decide whether it is the best fit of support.
Great job.
I look forward to meeting you. Wherever you find yourself on your entertainment industry journey, counseling can be a place where you don't have to do it alone.
Janelle Ault, LMFT