This hands-on workshop invites participants to experience Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) with the guidance of an interdisciplinary team including a clinical psychologist and two voice professors trained in the ACT method. Participants will be guided through a series of ACT activities designed to help musicians develop psychological flexibility in the midst of music performance anxiety (MPA). In contrast to cognitive behavioral therapy, which encourages musicians with MPA to change and reprogram anxious thoughts, ACT’s approach is based in acceptance, followed by a commitment to continuing to perform with anxiety present.

ACT is valuable tool for voice professionals because it can ethically be administered by a non-clinical practitioner in the context of a voice professional’s typical work: individual lessons/sessions, group voice classes, and studio/performance classes. ACT has been studied as a clinical intervention for MPA, administered by psychologists (Clarke et al., 2020; Juncos et al., 2017; Juncos & Markman, 2015). More recently, singing teachers who received training to use ACT coaching to treat MPA were able to replicate the results of those psychologists (Mahony et al., 2022; Shaw et al., 2020).

Our ACT workshop promises to be an engaging experience for the whole person, and a community-building experience for conference attendees. During our time together, we will work our way through the ACT “Hexaflex” (Hayes et al., (1999; 2011)) named because of the six-fold structure and the intent to cultivate psychological flexibility. Hexaflex components include (1) mindfulness, (2) willingness, (3) thought de-fusion, (4) exploring the self as context, (5) defining values, and (6) committing to well-defined goals.

We contextualize the experiential work with a brief review of the body of ACT research, and provide information about how to pursue further ACT training with Dr. Juncos virtually via the Voice Study Centre. These activities, along with many others, are published in Dr. Juncos’ 2022 book ACT for Musicians: A Guide for Using Acceptance and Commitment Training to Enhance Performance, Overcome Performance Anxiety, and Improve Well Being (with Elvire de Paiva e Pona, Universal Publishers).