Actors’ Personal Abilities for Dealing With Professional Stressors in an Existential-Analytical Perspective
Actors’ Personal Abilities for Dealing With Professional Stressors in an Existential-Analytical Perspective

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays scientific studies in field of counseling psychology describe the actor’s profession as extremely high-pressured and demanding throughout all stages of this career. Researchers are concerned about the wellbeing of people in the acting industry and note the influence of a wide range of factors that put pressure on their physical and mental health and well-being. The present study investigates from an existential-analytical point of view the question: what can help people who have chosen this career path to deal with the specific stressors “behind the scenes”? Its aim is to examine the impact of personal abilities for existential fulfilment: self-distance, self-transcendence, freedom, and responsibility, measured by the Existence Scale (ES), on the level of perceived acting-related stress, measured by the Acting-Related Stress Questionnaire (ARS). 144 (86 female and 58 male) professional Bulgarian actors aged 18 to 85 (average age 33,7 years) participated in the research. The personal abilities impact has been assessed by regression analysis in two groups: working professional actors N=111 and acting students N=33. A statistically significant negative relationship was deduced between the indicators for existential fulfilment and the level of perceived acting-related stress. The study reveals the existential fulfilment parameters have a more manifested impact in the acting students’ group. As for the professional actors, the results reveal a medium in strength and negative in direction statistically significant predictive impact. For both groups, the results show that the personal existential abilities` development (in the sense of Längle` Existential Analysis theory) can predict lower levels of perceived acting-related stress. The study’s outcome can be used in individual counseling and socio-psychological training.

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