Talking Mental Health In The Music Industry With Music Therapist Tamsin Embleton
We sat down to discuss the fundamentals of mental wellbeing and how important it is to maintain a healthy-work life balance, even while working in an industry you love.
Sure, I’m Tamsin Embleton - a psychotherapist working in the music business. Previously, I was booking venues and festivals, with a bit of tour management and artist management thrown in too.
I consult for tours and record labels helping them understand the psychological demands and interpersonal dynamics that people experience working in music and together with my colleagues at the Music Industry Therapist Collective (CIC), we create programmes of support for touring teams, management companies and record labels.
What is it about the music industry that makes it unique when it comes to mental health challenges?
It depends how you look at it. For me, what really sets this industry apart - particularly for artists - is the stark contrasts. The potential for transformation is huge, but the stakes are really high. If you ‘make it’ success holds the promise of restoring or improving self-esteem, of providing financial security, social status and many personal, creative and professional opportunities but it’s unpredictable, unstable, preoccupying and comes with a risk of humiliation.
In order to create and perform in a way that affects other people, you need to give a lot. You pour so much of yourself into the work, in order for it to feel real, entertaining and meaningful, but that can also leave you feeling drained and exposed. Your work is critiqued by others which can distort your self-view. The competition is high, which can be motivating, pushing you hard to succeed and develop but it can also evoke envy and insecurity.
It’s an industry built on relationships, and yet these relationships have unspoken rules that you only really learn about when you put a foot wrong. Attention is conditional. The phone stops ringing when you’re no longer useful or interesting to people. People’s livelihoods, identities, friendships and self-esteem can become tangled up with performance metrics.
There’s also the practical reality of the work itself: irregular schedules, performance demands, creative collaboration, long periods away from home, financial instability, public scrutiny. It can involve incredible life-changing experiences, but it can ask quite a lot of you psychologically. Therapy provides a space to slow down and ask ‘how am I experiencing this?’ and ‘what does this mean to me?’ and ‘what really matters to me?’.
It’s helpful to have someone on your side, with no skin in the game. It’s a rare space where you can speak freely with no consequences.
What makes you especially experienced to work with music industry clientele?
When a therapist holds a specialism, it usually indicates that they have a deep understanding of the particular psychological dynamics of an issue or client group. They might gain this from a combination of extensive clinical work, training and research. That is the case for me. I also understand the intensity and the appeal of creative work having worked in the industry myself for over 20 years.
Over the course of your career, what are some of the ways that the industry has adapted and changed for the better in terms of safeguarding artists’ and workers’ mental health?
I think there’s much more awareness now that mental health isn’t just an individual issue, it’s also shaped by working conditions, culture and relationships.
When I first started having these conversations, support was often much more reactive and centred around crisis. Now there’s more discussion about prevention, psychological safety, welfare, safeguarding, and the realities of freelance work. You’re seeing more organisations engaging in training (like mental health first aid) and psychoeducation (like workshops).
There’s still a long way to go, but I do think the conversation has progressed.
In 2023 you published your book Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual. For those who haven’t come across it, can you give us an overview of the book, its themes and the challenges that you tackle within it?
This is a book that explains why touring can be taxing and how to mitigate the effects of tour stress. A big theme running through the book is that touring impacts your mind, body and relationships. Touring can be exhilarating and meaningful, but it can also push you past the natural limits of your mind and body. It’s a rollercoaster!
The book is divided into sections that explore the different aspects of health on tour. There are chapters on group dynamics and romantic relationships, various forms of anxiety, anger management, depression, trauma, addiction, eating disorders, sleep, sexual health, nutrition, vocal and hearing health, meditation, post-tour recovery and crisis response, to name a few.
The contributors include psychotherapists, psychologists, doctors, nutritionists, performance specialists, musicians and touring vets, so it combines clinical expertise with personal anecdotes to bring it all to life.
The idea was to create something practical and accessible that people could actually use - and the feedback has been fantastic! It became a Rough Trade book of the year, which was a highlight. We’ve just released Spanish and French versions, and we spent a long time crafting an audiobook that contains original interview audio from all the interviews I held.
What prompted you to write the book in the first place? Was it through personal experience or patterns you had witnessed?
Yeah. Back in 2010, which feels like a lifetime ago now!, I was on tour in Europe looking after Anna Calvi. She was supporting Grinderman (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds side project). By that point, I’d already spent years sending bands out on the road as a manager or assistant manager with acts on Warp, Skint and Sunday Best, and I’d been booking venues for Mean Fiddler.
I thought I understood touring, but I had really underestimated the toll it could take. I was wiped! And this was (practically) a sober tour! Later, when I was training to be a psychotherapist I realised there was very little support available for people who tour - and in the music business in general. So I created MITC and I wrote the touring manual, and from there we’ve been putting the principles of the book to practice on tour with a variety of artists - Radiohead, Dua Lipa, The Script, etc.
When you’re working in creative industries you can sometimes feel a pressure to throw yourself into a role in an attempt to show your dedication to a job. What are some healthy practices for maintaining a good work-life balance?
I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to this, because the motivations underneath overworking can differ from person to person.
For some, throwing themselves into work connects them with a part of themselves that feels inspired or ambitious. For others, it might be about proving themselves as worthy or about external validation. Sometimes work becomes a way of avoiding particular feelings or parts of ourselves. Sometimes it’s just what is expected in order to get ahead. The problem often is that the more you overwork, the less connected you are to your inner needs.
So what I’d encourage people to do is get into dialogue with themselves and become curious about what is happening internally. If you notice a pattern that feels unhealthy or unsustainable, try asking yourself: What is the function of this? What’s the payoff? Who is it for? What feels at risk if I slow down? What would happen if I did things differently?
Sometimes people discover that they are unconsciously driven by beliefs or expectations they’ve absorbed from the industry, family, or earlier experiences around worth, achievement or belonging that can be helpful to unpick. Knowledge is power!
Buy it here
Are there any common themes or problems that you see from those working in music? Does being aware of the potential pitfalls help prevent them causing harm in the long run?
There are many common themes - disappointment, loneliness, relationship strain, difficulty resting, identity becoming wrapped up in profile, and needing to continually prove oneself.
Awareness helps you make better choices. It buys you time so you can be more considered in your response rather than reacting or covering up something uncomfortable.
Knowing the potential pitfalls doesn’t prevent stressful things from happening, but it can help you be more intentional about how you cope at the time.
What is The Music Industry Therapist Collective and why did you start it?
The Music Industry Therapist Collective is an international collective of psychotherapists and psychologists who all combine substantial clinical training with experience of having worked professionally in the music industry ourselves.
We offer therapy, workshops, consultation, backstage support and tour welfare work for artists, crew, executives and organisations.
It was born out of a lack of specialist services available and a belief that we had a duty to share our observations and clinical insights in order to improve the living and working conditions for people in music.
Your Pay It Forward scheme offers free sessions to independent artists and crew working on lower-budget tours. How does it work and how can people access it?
It will do, when it launches later this year!
The idea behind the fund is that larger organisations and partners help subsidise specialist mental health support for artists and crew working on lower-budget tours that otherwise wouldn’t have access to it. We’re hoping to support up to 50 tours a year, at no cost, for 3 years+. We’ve got some great partners on board, but just looking for a couple more before we launch in the autumn. Anyone with deep pockets, please give us a call.
The best thing people can do is join our newsletter on the website and keep an eye on announcements through instagram or LinkedIn @weareMITC.
What change would you like to see in the music industry in regards to putting mental health first?
Honestly, I think a lot would improve if managers - whether that’s artist managers, tour managers or managers within companies - received better training around people management and compassion fatigue.
So much of somebody’s experience of work comes down to relationships, leadership and culture. Technical skills are important, obviously, but managing people well is a skill in itself and I don’t think the industry does very well on that side of things.
Finally, what music are you listening to at the moment?
Recently, I’ve been listening to ICONOCLASTS by Anna von Hausswolff, which I adore, and OUTTANATIONAL by Pigeon.