Caring For The Mind Behind The Music

Music Not Diving is a podcast by Scuba speaking to all manner of people working in music. In this episode, he's talking to Denise Devenish, a psychotherapist who specialises in treating musicians, and who offers a specialist service for those working in the creative industries. They discuss the extent of a mental health crisis in the creative industries, as well as the wider economy - in addition to the "art comes from pain" and "genius requires madness" tropes which surround music. Here's more: 
 

She describes herself as having grown up "in a family steeped in the music business and having been surrounded by musicians and industry folk my whole life" and having "witnessed first hand the unique highs and lows that working in the industry entails."

So of course this is an interesting person to talk to!

The book we refer to is Can Music Make You Sick? by Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave (aka Context). A key input into that is Jodi Dean's Communucative Capitalism (2005), which I also recommend.

This a really interesting discussion of some pertinent issues!

00:00 Intro and how you can support the show
03:39 Who is Denise Devenish?
07:45 Mental health challenges in creative industries
13:30 The realities of creative work
20:40 Suffering for your art
25:59 AD
27:30 On-stage characters
30:50 Challenges of different levels of success
36:10 Metrics of value in digital music
43:27 AD
43:30 Are young people really drinking less?
50:00 What are the treatment options?
57:46 AD
01:07:00 Early experiences

Here is the latest episode... 

And one with Joe Goddard:

More from Music Not Diving with Scuba

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• Bitwig's New Native Devices 17-Sep-26
• Reason Scream4 is Now Free! 17-Sep-26
• Broke Beats pt1 - A £37 Interface & Multi FX 16-Sep-26
• Ed O'Brien's Must-Listen Albums 16-Sep-26