This practical, empowering guide provides performers and creatives with a toolkit of techniques to improve, manage and maintain good emotional wellbeing – helping you navigate and overcome the pressures and demands of a career in the arts.
Inside, you'll find key, evidence-based concepts and ideas about emotional health, as well as the benefits of taking a holistic approach to your brain, imagination and body. There are dozens of creative exercises and meditations to help you build resilience, develop your emotional intelligence, reframe negative thoughts, stay motivated, and embrace change when it comes. You'll also discover strategies for tackling auditions, preparing for performances and coping with periods of unemployment, plus guidance on creating your own personalised emotional health plan.
Invaluable for anyone working in the creative industries, this book will equip you to assume responsibility for your own emotional wellbeing, and pursue your passion whilst still enjoying a life of fulfilment and satisfaction.
The Compact Guides are pocket-sized introductions for actors and theatremakers, each tackling a key topic in a clear and comprehensive way. Written by industry professionals with extensive hands-on experience of their subject, they provide you with maximum information in minimum time.
Andy Barker, Brian Cooley and Beth Wood have all worked in the arts in various roles, including as actors, writers, directors and stage managers. Together, Andy and Brian run Mind Fitness, an organisation dedicated to developing mental health and wellbeing and business effectiveness, and Beth is Artistic Director of Prospero Theatre Company.
About the Author :
Andy Barker is a certified performance coach, trainer and author with diverse work experience in the arts and corporate senior management.
He has worked in the music industry, the film industry, the world of theatre, videogames, and learning and development. Highlights include working with Jim Henson's Muppets and with Andrew Lloyd Webber's numerous West End productions. Amongst a wide range of backstage credits, he was part of the original London productions of Evita, Starlight Express and Chess, transferred Single Spies from the National Theatre to the West End, enjoyed a run on Me and My Girl in London, and was Company Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera at the Savoy Theatre.
With Brian Cooley, he runs Mind Fitness, an organisation dedicated to developing mental health and wellbeing alongside business effectiveness.
He is the co-author of Developing Your Emotional Health: The Compact Guide (Nick Hern Books, 2024) with Brian Cooley and Beth Wood.
Brian Cooley has had a successful and diverse career in business, theatre and education, and co-runs Mind Fitness, an organisation dedicated to developing mental health and wellbeing alongside business effectiveness.
He has worked as a core company member of Red Ladder, Sheffield Crucible, Theatr Clwyd & Doctor Foster's Travelling Theatre, and has taught theatre skills at drama schools and universities throughout the UK. He has also worked in corporate environments in the UK and USA, and has led commercially successful teams in the public and private sectors.
He is the co-author of Developing Your Emotional Health: The Compact Guide (Nick Hern Books, 2024) with Andy Barker and Beth Wood.
Beth Wood is Artistic Director of Prospero Theatre Company, an inclusive award-winning theatre company that uses drama to improve the quality of life for adults and young people with disabilities and mental health conditions.
She is the co-author of Developing Your Emotional Health: The Compact Guide (Nick Hern Books, 2024) with Andy Barker and Brian Cooley. She also writes the drama activities for Longman's Shakespeare series and her plays have been widely performed.
Review :
'An extremely interesting and useful book for anyone in a creative role... this small and light paperback can be easily transported about with you, and just dipping into any page may well be rewarding... an excellent addition to the material currently available on the subject. It is written in a chatty and approachable style, and the bitesize structure is perfect for reading on the go'
'A practical, accessible, friendly book with the potential to support anyone whose emotional health could, potentially, be challenged'
'A refreshing look at how to sustain mind, body and brain… this handy pocket guide offers great insight into the modem creative industries… It is grounded in real-life experience and offers many active exercises for the reader… actively useful with real world application… it's a highly engaging and soothing balm to ensure that we start to take seriously the craft of looking after ourselves'
'Invaluable advice and support... This is the first book, to my knowledge, that looks specifically at how people who work in the creative industries can develop and support their own mental health... It is a timely book, as it explores the triggers for mental health issues, such as unstable work, low pay and lack of support... It is well structured and easy to navigate, and being pocket sized makes it an ideal travelling companion... Each chapter begins with a slice of learning and is strongly evidenced by science... The accompanying online recordings are soothing, relaxing and insightful, and fully complement the exercises in the book. I was impressed with how they engage the reader with the topics it covers... Developing Your Emotional Health should be given to all students at the end of their training as an arts practitioner'
