Therapy for Actors &
Entertainment Professionals

The Hollywood Seesaw

There is an interesting contradiction you almost have to develop if you want to survive in Hollywood.

On one side, you need to believe that you are good enough to be there. You have to walk into an audition with hundreds of other talented people and genuinely think, “Why not me?” You need enough confidence to believe you can carry the role, belong in the room, and compete with people who want the exact same thing you do.

But sitting right next to that confidence is often another voice saying, “I’m terrible. They’re going to figure me out. Everyone else is doing better than me. Maybe I’m never going to make it.”

I think of it as a seesaw.

One day you’re convinced you’re about to become the next big thing, and a few days later you’re wondering whether you should quit acting, move somewhere else, and never speak about this phase of your life again. Then you get an audition, or a callback, or a meeting, and the seesaw shoots back up.

That kind of psychological whiplash can become exhausting after enough years.

I Know What It’s Like to Think, “This Is It”

I know the experience of booking something you desperately wanted and thinking, “This is it. This is the job that’s going to change everything.”

Sometimes it does change things. And sometimes the show tanks, the pilot doesn’t get picked up, the project disappears, the role changes, or they decide at the last minute that they want a local hire. Something completely outside of your control happens, and this huge future you had already constructed in your head suddenly disappears.

I’ve experienced versions of that.

I’ve also experienced something that can be even more confusing: getting what you wanted and realizing it still wasn’t enough.

You book the thing you had been chasing. You’re excited, proud, and relieved. For a little while you feel incredible, and then your brain starts asking, “Okay, what’s next?”

“Making It” Can Become a Mirage

This is one of the biggest traps in entertainment. You keep thinking there is some point where you will finally arrive.

“When I book my first television role, then I’ll relax.”

“When I get a recurring role, then I’ll know I’m good.”

“When I become a series regular, then I’ll finally feel successful.”

The problem is that the finish line has an amazing ability to move.

What used to be your dream eventually becomes something you take for granted, and now there is another dream sitting ten feet ahead of you. It can start to feel like a carrot on a stick. You keep running, you get close, sometimes you even grab it, and then somebody hangs another one a little farther away.

If your entire sense of happiness and self-worth becomes tied to finally “making it,” this process can drive you a little crazy.

The Highs and Lows Are Different in Entertainment

Entertainment also gives you some enormous emotional highs.

You can hear nothing for months and then suddenly get the audition you really want. Then comes the callback, then another callback, and then your agent calls and tells you that you booked it. Everything can change in a matter of hours.

You’re excited. People are congratulating you. You’re on set. You’re doing the thing you’ve spent years imagining yourself doing.

And then it’s over.

Now you’re back home on a Tuesday afternoon wondering what you’re supposed to do with yourself.

That transition can be harder than people realize. When your career repeatedly gives you these massive bursts of anticipation, validation, excitement, and stimulation, normal life can sometimes start to feel a little dull. There aren’t many ordinary Tuesdays that can compete with hearing the words, “You booked it.”

So when work slows down, some entertainers don’t just miss working. They miss the feeling they get from working.

That can leave people feeling restless, depressed, bored, or constantly hungry for the next big thing.

It Can Be an Incredibly Lonely Career

Family and friends may love you and still not really understand what you’re doing.

They might ask when you’re going to “make it,” why you’re still auditioning after all these years, or why you’re upset when you just worked on something a few months ago. They usually aren’t trying to be dismissive. They just don’t live inside the same reality.

It can be difficult to explain the emotional experience of this career to someone who has never lived it.

But even friendships with other people in entertainment can become complicated because everyone is technically doing the same thing while also being on their own path.

In a more traditional job, you might start with coworkers, get promoted together, build seniority, and have some general idea of where your career is going. Entertainment doesn’t work like that.

The person sitting next to you in acting class might book a massive television show tomorrow. Someone who started five years after you might suddenly blow up. Someone incredibly talented might struggle for fifteen years, while someone else gets incredibly lucky almost immediately.

There isn’t a normal timeline. And because there isn’t a normal timeline, comparison becomes very hard to avoid.

You can be surrounded by people and still feel like you’re running the race alone.

The Industry Trains You to Be Self-Absorbed

I don’t necessarily mean that as an insult. It’s almost part of the job.

Think about how much time an actor is trained to spend thinking about themselves.

How do I look? What’s my type? What’s my brand? How was my audition? Does casting like me? Why didn’t they call me back? Should I lose weight? Should I gain muscle? Should I change my hair? Do I need new headshots? Why isn’t my agent submitting me? How many followers do I have? What should I be doing that I’m not doing?

A lot of the job becomes me, me, me. You almost have to be self-focused because, in many ways, you are the product.

Eventually, it can become difficult to know the difference between actually knowing yourself and constantly analyzing yourself.

That can bleed into relationships, sex, friendships, self-esteem, depression, jealousy, resentment, and even your ability to genuinely celebrate someone else’s success without immediately wondering what their success says about you.

It can be exhausting.

Who Are You When the Career Is Quiet?

I think this is one of the more important questions for anyone working in entertainment.

Who are you when nobody is calling? Who are you when you’re not auditioning? Who are you when the movie ends, when your friend books the thing you wanted, or when your career doesn’t happen exactly the way you imagined it would?

And maybe most importantly, can your life still be good while you’re waiting for the next thing?

This doesn’t mean you stop being ambitious. I don’t think ambition is the problem.

Want the role. Want the show. Want the career. Work your ass off for it.

But if the career becomes responsible for telling you whether you are valuable, attractive, interesting, successful, or worthy, you’re giving an incredibly unstable industry a tremendous amount of power over you.

Therapy With Someone Who Has Actually Been There

One advantage of working with a therapist who has experience in entertainment is that you don’t have to spend half the session explaining why something matters.

I understand why losing a role you technically never had can still feel like a loss. I understand why seeing somebody else’s Deadline announcement can make you feel terrible even when you genuinely like that person. I understand what it’s like to put enormous expectations onto a job and convince yourself that if you get this one thing, everything is finally going to be different.

I also understand how strange it can feel when you actually get it and realize you’re still you.

Therapy isn’t about convincing you to stop caring about your career. It’s about helping you understand what the career is bringing up in you: the insecurity, the ego, the comparison, the rejection, the loneliness, the constant self-evaluation, the incredible highs, and the disappointment that sometimes follows them.

And underneath all of that, the work is figuring out how to build a relationship with yourself that doesn’t completely rise and fall with your IMDb page.

You can still chase something extraordinary. You can still want to be great at what you do. You can still care deeply about your career.

You just don’t have to lose yourself while you’re chasing it.