Psychology   [back to the Category]

Retirement-transitions in ballet dancers   [read the french version]

Author :   Miss Roncaglia

Introduction
Retirement-transitions in ballet dancers have been an aerea of research highly ignored amongst professionals and academics. The all encompassing career sees the dancer totally dedicated to focused training,competition and artistic maturity leaving little breath and space to develop transferable skills. Thus a need for preparation to what will be the future of that dancer when s/he will be faced with the end of their professional career is an important and essential need for their well-being.

Different models have been adopted for this study where ex-dancers have been interviewed after their retirement.

Objectives
The aim of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the psychological, physiological and sociological consequences experienced by retired dancers and to investigate practical issues in terms of needs,educational programs and support networks to assist this occupational group during their transition.

Methodology
A qualitative methodology was used for this study where interpretative analysis was conducted. So far 3 participants have been selected and interviewed between the age of 30-35 (means 32.6,SD=0.47).

Results
From the data analysis 13 main themes emerged which were analysed further to a higher level of abstraction into 3 main 'core constructs'.This table shows the main 3 core constructs that emerged from the themes.

1.'Individuated Self'

Physicality & Mortality
Courage & Indecisiveness
Foreclosure vs. Openness
Uncertainty
Lack of Understanding

2.'Situated Self'
Nostalgic memories
Circumstances around Transition
Stigma
Lack of Support

3.'Social Self'
Isolation vs. Alienation
Social Comparison (with active dancers)
Comparison Family Ideals
Controllability

Conclusions

The results suggest so far, that the retirement-process is characterised by three main phases regardless of the causes which have led the individual to the decision of retiring. An awareness of the incertitude of the future and the choices available are constantly present in my participant scripts. The individual goes through a process of questioning his/her identity depending on the available support given to the individual. Possible personality characteristics may influence such process. The individual identifies a state, which involves overwhelming feelings, numbness, exhaustion, escapism and avoidance where the self needs to recreate a meaningful context detached from the existing one. The dancer needs to individuate who s/he really is after or in the process of abandoning their “dancers identity”. The situated self is concerned with the middle phase of the retirement-process, where the changed situation constitutes either flooded states of nostalgic reviews or a process of evaluation with early attempts at working thorough the situation, confiding, looking for help and appraisal. This process can have positive as well as negative results, where confiding could be received with or without empathy and cause the individual to retreat to an initial stage of foreclosure and denial.

The social self is concerned with the final stage of the transition where a failure in working through preceding phases may cause maladaptive patterns such as isolation and alienation. These could involve
prolonged sense of grief and anxiety. Dancers seems to give value to the career change in comparison to the environment they happen to be in where the possession of coping strategies during the adaptive period facilitate such process. Furthermore, the social self is dynamically linked to the individuated self where positive outcomes are also expressed through enhanced mental and physical health with a greater sense of controllability and elation.

Further steps
Exploring through further interviews the 'core constructs' so far investigated.Revision of current literature and theoretical frameworks in view of the findings.

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