Vocational Dance Training: An opportunity to thrive or a risk factor for young people's mental health?

对于有才华的年轻舞者来说，职业舞蹈课程是实现专业舞蹈梦想的第一步(Blevins等人，2020年)。一旦通过试镜，培训的目的是让舞者为职场做准备，但它伴随着独特的压力源。例如，舞蹈专业的学生必须适应高强度的体能训练和舞蹈行业的心理压力，如技术上的完美，努力获得理想的舞蹈体型，以及竞争环境(Cumming&Duda，2012)。如果舞者不能有效地管理这些压力源，他们就有可能危及自己的健康以及领导健康舞蹈事业和生活的能力。事实上，研究强调了这一人群中普遍存在的心理健康问题(van Winden等人，2020；Cumming&Duda，2012)，这表明了解他们独特的经历和支持他们的方式的重要性。舞蹈人群中常见的特征是韧性、完美主义和激情(Kveton-Bohnert，2017；Padham&Aujla，2014)。这些品质被认为是竞技体育和艺术成功的积极属性，但它们也可能产生负面后果。例如，虽然复原力可以帮助舞者应对拒绝和竞争，但在受伤时，由于担心被贴上“软弱”或“不够复原力”的标签而继续跳舞可能会对身心健康产生负面影响(Pentith&McEvilly，2018)。虽然激情对艺术性很重要，但由于强迫性激情而产生的限制性行为与饮食失调有关(Padham&Aujla，2014)。有必要更好地了解舞蹈学生所具有的特征，澄清哪些品质和技能支持他们茁壮成长，哪些可能危及他们的健康。有一些与积极健康相关的技能最近已经被引入舞蹈学生群体，例如正念(Blevins等人，2022年)，但还有更多技能需要探索，这可能会产生积极的影响。例如，在优秀体操学生中引入了自我同情策略(Rodriguez&Ebbeck，2015)。早期心理干预已被确定为运动员心理健康长寿的关键因素(Purcell等人，2019年)，但在职业舞蹈学生群体中，这种干预仍然有限。在培训期间进行心理干预，旨在教育和支持舞蹈学生在他们的领域内应对压力，可能会改善他们的心理健康和幸福感。鉴于大量研究确定了职业舞蹈培训对心理健康的风险，有机会探索通过心理干预支持职业舞蹈学生的新方法。该项目旨在回答以下研究问题：1)职业舞蹈学生的心理特征是什么？2)这些特征对舞蹈学生的表现和幸福感有何影响？3)我们能否培养舞蹈学生的特征，以优化他们的表现和幸福感？该项目具有重要意义，因为广泛的研究表明，舞者在训练期间有很高的心理健康问题的风险(Clements，2021；Blevins et el，2020)，而且还在其他精英运动中进行了研究，概述了舞蹈中尚未探索的可能的保护因素(Kuettell&Larsen，2020)。通过专注于帮助职业学校有抱负的舞者充分发挥他们的潜力，该项目不仅可以对职业舞蹈环境产生真正的影响，也可以对舞蹈业的未来产生真正的影响。

For talented young dancers, vocational dance programmes are the first step in fulfilling a dream of dancing professionally (Blevins et al., 2020). Once accepted through audition, training aims to prepare dancers for the professional world, but it comes with unique stressors. For example, dance students must manage intense physical training regimes and the psychological pressures of the dance industry such as technical perfection, striving for the ideal dance physique, and competitive environments (Cumming & Duda, 2012). If dancers do not manage these stressors effectively, they risk jeopardising their wellbeing and ability to lead healthy dance careers and lives. Indeed, research highlights the prevalence of mental health concerns within this population (van Winden et al.,2020; Cumming & Duda, 2012), which demonstrates the importance of understanding their unique experiences and ways in which they can be supported.Characteristics commonly found within the dance population are resilience, perfectionism, and passion (Kveton-Bohnert, 2017; Padham & Aujla, 2014). These qualities are considered positive attributes to have in competitive sports and arts for success, but they may also have negative consequences. For example, whilst resilience can help the dancer to deal with rejection and competition, continuing to dance when injured due to fear of being labelled 'weak' or 'not resilient enough' can have negative consequences for mental and physical health (Pentith & McEvilly, 2018). Although passion is important for artistry, restrictive behaviours due to obsessive passion are associated with disordered eating (Padham & Aujla, 2014). There is a need to better understand the characteristics dance students possess, clarify what qualities and skills support them to thrive, and which can risk their wellbeing. There are skills associated with positive wellbeing that have been introduced to the dance student population recently, such as mindfulness (Blevins et al., 2022), but many more to explore that could have a positive impact. For example, the introduction of self-compassion strategies, which has been done in elite gymnastics students (Rodriguez & Ebbeck,2015). Early psychological intervention has been identified as a key factor in mental health longevity in athletes (Purcell et al., 2019), but within a vocational dance student population, it remains limited. A psychological intervention during training years that aims to educate and support the dance student as they navigate the stressors within their field could improve their mental health and wellbeing. Given the amount of research identifying the risks to psychological health that vocational dance training can have, there is an opportunity to explore new ways of supporting vocational dance students through psychological intervention. The project aims to answer the following research questions:1) What are the psychological characteristics of vocational dance students?2) How do these characteristics influence dance students' performance and well-being?3) Could we train dance students to develop characteristics that would optimise their performance and well-being? The project is significant in light of extensive research suggesting that dancers are at high risk of developing mental health issues during training years (Clements, 2021; Blevins et el., 2020), but also the research within other elite sports that outlines possible protective factors that have not yet been explored within dance (Kuettell & Larsen, 2020). By focusing on helping aspiring dancers in vocational schools to reach their full potential, the project could make a real difference not only to the vocational dance environment, but also to the future of the dance industry.