Discussing Mental Health

Host: John Graham

Guests: Zoe Aston - @yourmentalhealthworkout

As dancers our sense of identity is so intertwined with what we do that it can present many challenges to our mental well-being even at the best of times let alone during a pandemic. It affects us all in different ways and at different times, from young dancers still in training to highly experienced working professionals at the top of their game - no one is exempt regardless of how it looks from the outside. This first segment is an intro to our series discussing mental health with psychotherapist, mental health advisor and author Zoe Aston. Zoe wants us to start treating our mental health with the same level of care and attention as we do our physical health. She talks us through her journey from young dancer in training at dance college to studying psychology at University and qualifying to practice. We talk about her history in dance and the impact it had on her mental health as well as the impact her mental health had on her ability to train and perform. We speak about what she has learned during the course of her study of psychology in relation to what she went through as a dancer. And we introduce some of the topics, challenges and remedies we will be discussing over the course of this series.

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