The survey, which was open to everyone in the sector and completed by more than 5,000 people, found that 46% of those who answered a question about the state of their mental health described it as either poor or average, and that 20% had actively sought help about their mental well-being.
8 comments:
This is an excellent investigation into high pressure jobs - especially the theatrical ones! Sure, it is commonly known that CEOs in charge of a lot of money and business decisions are often not well off mentally, but now light is being shed on those who just devote all their time to the arts. I personally find this article very comforting because I am often a very stable person, but this article reaffirms the common saying that ‘everyone has their moments’ especially in the field I am training for. I am sure more correlative research should be done in this topic to maybe set up better employee or potentially union mental health care, or even just to spread greater awareness of what this kind of field can do to someone working in it. This article also speaks volumes because theatre is often known to be a very close-knit field and with the level of mental illness apparent, just makes the results more dramatic.
It is worrying how unsurprising this is. The theatrical world involves long hours, high pressure situation, high stakes work, often very little sleep, and job instability on top of it all. I'm honestly surprised the number isn't higher. Given that artistic people already tend to be prone to higher running emotions, these living conditions would affect anybody. This effect is counterbalanced by the fact that no one works in the theatre if they could let themselves do anything else. People work in the theatre because it is a passion that drives them, and makes the agony and worry worth it. That said, the amount of passion and drive can result in artists forgetting to take care of themselves. I know among people I have known, theatrical environments can make the stakes always feel 100%, always feel like everything is the end of the world. That is far too much pressure for anyone to deal with all the time. I hope we can get some more awareness around the issue, and maybe sway those numbers.
I think that one of the primary issues with this article is that the headline advertises that only twenty percent of entertainment employees has mental health issues while on the survey over 40 percent, a much larger portion, indicated they felt they had poor average health. This is not entirely suprising simply because of the stress that our job implies because of deadlines, tight turn arounds, and budgeting. The statistic about the poor body health does not surprise me either because of the late nights, lack of sleep, and tendency to eat poor food because it is what is convenient during short breaks. In general though I think the stress of being involved in the arts can quickly and easily take a toll on someone. To work your mind constantly and pushing yourself as your job can easily knock you down a few rings on the ladder and it can be hard to climb back up.
When I saw the title of the article, I assumed that it was going to talk about how the percentage of mental illness in theater is far too high and that we need to do more to combat it. I was surprised when their equity spokesperson said that the study was not a negative fact, but was in fact positive reassurance that people with mental health problems are doing just fine in the industry. I cant say that I agree with that assessment. Mental health in any profession is a serious issue and shouldn’t be taken lightly, and it is an especially serious problem in theater. We shouldn’t think that just because people are getting by and surviving that everything is okay and we don’t need to look into the causes of mental health issues in the theater. Among actors and performers, it’s a problem with the stereotypes of their body image and that their careers depend on people shallow perception of them. With backstage personal, stress and creative inadequacy are rampant. And everyone in the field is subject to the stresses of an unpredictable market and insecure work.
I agree with Chris that it is a positive thing that people with mental health issues are finding work in such a competitive work environment. I think it is also good to point out that this field, particularly the broader field of art, is one that attracts people that would have a lot of difficulty finding work elsewhere. That does not mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about this issue, or that there isn’t a high potential for people working in the high pressure environment of show business to sucrose to that amount of pressure, but it isn’t exactly a surprising statistic. It’s something that we have known for a long while, or at least should have, just like the brain injuries sustained by football players and boxers. I think that regardless of whether people who come into this industry already have some less than stable mental health, or whether they acquire that burden through their work, it is important to provide some assistance with that burden. This makes sense from both a societal and managerial standpoint, because happy workers work better, more efficiently, and create a better product. So now that we’ve targeted this issue, it becomes our responsibility to decide what we want to do about it.
In our industry these statistics don’t really surprise me at all. Yes it’s unfortunate these issues occur, but we operate ourselves in such a fast-paced forward moving environment, that it’s pretty hard to keep pace without the work getting to your head. I’m not surprised at all that mental health issues occur in the theater world, if anything I’d be surprised if they didn’t. In fact I’m sure these issues occur all around the entertainment and art industries. Everyday artists create new work, invest their time and energy into expression, put it out there for all to see, accept the criticism or acclaim or lack of attention, then have to keep their head up, push on and start the process all over again. Undoubtedly this process takes a lot out of people, and over long periods of time it makes since that it takes a toll on many.
I think the important part of this article is that we know these mental health issues are occurring but we don’t talk about them enough. Its too easy to focus on the glitz and glam of show biz, but the spectacle we create on stage is inherently fake, and we should pay more attention to the reality behind it especially when mental health is at stake. Its okay that 46% of people in this survey described their mental health as either poor or average, what’s not okay is that only 20% actively sought help about their mental well being. I think the theater and other entertainment industries should pay more attention to the mental health affects that such lifestyles have on their workers, and make more of an effort to not sweep these concerning issues to the side but rather start a dialogue and look for a way to address and reduce them.
I mean, yeah.
This is something we all sort of have in the back of our minds, but it is definitely not something we talk about enough. I was recently looking at apartments, and my realtor was talking about what it was like to have two actors for parents. She said that the times they had work were feast, and the times they didn't were famine. She spent her childhood in the backseat of a car and lived with the constant instability of show business income. This is why, she says, she decided to go into a more lucrative field.
It is pretty terrifying to think that while we are so happy studying what we are studying now, and so excited to go into the real world, it won't always be good- it won't always be what we love and signed up for. It can be said for anyone that hardship is a possibility, but with the way our business works, it is terribly likely that we will learn to expect instability. And while it is still what we love and have worked for, there's bound to be some wicked backlash when things don't work out the way we'd like them to.
I am not surprised, unfortunately, by the mental health issues found in the theatre community, but I hope that articles like these might stimulate a conversation on the topic. We definitely don't talk enough about these kinds of things- it's a conversation Drama schools should be having.
There is a saying that from great pain comes great art. So often us as theater professionals have to dig deep and expose ourselves to the world to reach great success. Some would argue after reading this article that maybe it’s time for a change. We are constantly making ourselves suffer and being very vulnerable to something that we find true fulfillment. Theater is an addiction. If you just examine the definition of an addiction and look at the statistics this article provides it’s easy to see we are harming ourselves. Maybe in a perfect world there exists a place where we can create great and powerful thought provoking art without the expense of ourselves. Personally I don’t see this happening. I see our jobs as theater professional sometimes holding the burden of the reality of life because so often we are trying to truly understand the world we live in and educate those around us. Consider the mental side effects as just another part of the theater professional’s burden.
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