Dr. Fiona McAndrew: Music, Peak Experience & Depth Psychology

Thoughts on Record: Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Music is an under-explored tool with respect to the provision of psychotherapy as well as the crafting of peak experiences. Clinical counsellor, performance coach and opera singer, Dr. Fiona McAndrew, joins us for an eclectic, wide-ranging discussion in which explore:

• Fiona's alternating journey between psychology and music
• a window into the psychological life of a top tier opera singer
• music as tool to evoke and access emotions and spiritual experiences
• the emotional transaction between performer and artist
• Fiona's research on peak experience and peak states including a fascinating recounting of her own seminal peak experience while performing
• translating learnings from peak experience in the performing arts to the therapeutic domain
• consideration of the evolutionary significance of peak experience and the utility for exploring one's sense of self
• reflections on providing therapy to highly creative individuals
• a brief meditation on the beauty inherent to the human voice
• the appeal and utility of depth psychology, especially for managing dialectics and tolerating internal dissonance
• the unique challenges and opportunity of the mid-life passage

Feedback or comments? Email us: [e-mail]

Dr. Fiona McAndrew is a clinical counsellor and performance coach working internationally online and in person in central Helsinki. She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne in Music Performance Psychology and a Master of Counselling (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) from Monash University, Melbourne which she integrates with a Jungian, depth psychology perspective to help a range of clients in the corporate world, elite athletics, professional performing arts, music, film and advertising. This experience is underpinned by training and publication as a research psychologist (B.A.Hons) (University of Western Australia) and professional performing arts training at the elite Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London (PG.Ad.Dip.,Opera). She is also a trained Creativity Coach and holds a Certificate to administer the personality test, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Fiona’s special interest in positive psychology and performance grew out of her 25 year career as an international opera singer performing solo roles to critical acclaim for major festivals, opera houses and film. Until 2020, she was Deputy Head of Opera and Classical Voice as well as a lecturer in Musical Theatre at the well- known multi-arts conservatoire Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and is a frequent performance consultant at conservatoire and universities in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
In 2020 she re-trained in counselling and her Masters research focussed on anxiety in mid-life women and chronic pain conditions. Her previous doctoral research into peak states of consciousness, looked at the ways in which music, language and movement in the communal experience of theatre can provide the conditions for the experience of awe that lies "beyond words".
Fiona’s diverse range of experience and skills and a network of international referrals and contacts, allows her to offer a creative, confidential space for clients to address issues and develop clarity in their working and personal lives. The term idir from the Irish language meaning between, refers to the creative space between client and therapist and between clients and their creative challengess.
https://idircreativecounselling.com/
Email: [e-mail]