Unnerved

Name: Unnerved
Price: 49.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9798216366348

The Performer's Guide to Managing Anxiety

Melissa M. Plamann

$49.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Bloomsbury Academic
19 March 2026

Acting techniques; Techniques of music & music tutorials; Coping with anxiety & phobias

A relatable and practical roadmap for combating each performer’s unique brand of performance anxiety by discovering and managing root emotional drivers—this resource is designed to uncover what makes each individual performer “tick.”

Melissa M. Plamann provides an engaging and humorous book, chock-full of data, for anyone who experiences performance anxiety in any performing arts discipline at any age. After defining “performance anxiety” and exploring the fight-flight-freeze response, she examines treatment options, including medication and several types of therapy. Utilizing the Enneagram system as a tool to define personal drivers for anxiety, she examines fear, shame, and anger, and then suggests how performers can address and manage their unique brand of performance anxiety based on these emotional reflexes. Chapters deal with myriad other elements impacting performance anxiety, including the mind-body connection, suggesting that emotional turmoil and stress cause physical ailments and exacerbate the somatic expressions of anxiety. Also addressed are miscellaneous issues that predispose performers to increased anxiety: educational settings, hierarchical relationships, hormonal shifts, gender, and even the pandemic. Finally, she offers practice and performance strategies designed to prevent and interrupt performance anxiety when it attacks.

This book offers practical advice and insight for performers, gleaned from the author’s lifetime of personal performance as well as hundreds of interactions with students navigating their own performance anxiety.

By: Melissa M. Plamann
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 226mm, Width: 150mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9798216366348
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 19 March 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Prologue. It’s Complicated 1. The Problem: Anatomy of Performance Anxiety 2. Help: Medication, Therapy, and Other Options 3. Solid Ground: The Enneagram 4. Shame: The Feeling Triad (Helpers, Achievers, and Individualists) 5. Fear: The Thinking Triad (Investigators, Loyalists, and Enthusiasts) 6. Anger: The Doing Triad (Reformers, Challengers, and Peacemakers) 7. Nine Lives: Performance Anxiety and The Enneagram 8. Letting Go: The Mind-Body Connection 9. Why Me?: Cultural Baggage Impacting Anxiety 10. Assembling the Toolkit: Preparation and Performance Epilogue. It’s Still Complicated. Acknowledgements References Index

Melissa Plamann is the Wanda L. Bass Chair of Organ and Professor of Music at Oklahoma City University, USA. She is an avid performer and lifelong sufferer of performance anxiety. Through nearly two decades of coaching collegiate musicians, she has developed a system to help performers identify the root emotional driver of their anxiety and learn to manage it effectively.

Reviews for Unnerved: The Performer's Guide to Managing Anxiety

Unnerved is the book every performer, educator, and artistic soul has been waiting for. With rare honesty and generous insight, Melissa M. Plamann replaces shame with understanding, and fear with practical, compassionate tools. This isn’t just a guide – it’s a lifeline. Plamann has written the most human, intelligent, and genuinely helpful book I’ve read on performance anxiety. This book might not only help you reclaim your voice – it may restore your relationship with the art you love. -- Matthew Denman * Grammy-nominated Music Educator and Executive Director of the Leyenda Foundation * Public speaking. Boardroom pitches. Center stage. If the thought of all eyes on you makes your stomach flip, Unnerved is the performance anxiety manual you didn’t know you needed. Melissa M. Plamann writes with humor, heart, and zero tolerance for shame – helping musicians, sure, but also leaders, speakers, and anyone-with-a-pulse own their moment. -- Christina Wallace * Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School, USA; Author of The Portfolio Life *