People-Pleasing, Burnout & Boundaries: Therapy for Creatives with Lee Ellaway

In this powerful and gently eye-opening episode, I'm joined by Lee Ellaway, a person-centred counsellor, psychotherapist, and the founder of Lee Ellaway Therapy, a private practice supporting performers, creatives and those navigating big transitions in the arts industry.

With over 30 years of experience in theatre and live events, Lee shares why he pivoted from directing and running theatre schools to holding space for artists facing burnout, identity shifts, people-pleasing patterns and creative crossroads. Together, Lee and I explore why burnout hits so hard in our industry, how performers can begin setting boundaries, and what really happens in a first therapy session.

Expect heartfelt stories, boundary-setting analogies you’ll never forget (hello, garden fence with a gate), and a refreshing take on therapy that makes it feel human, accessible and less daunting, especially for creatives who feel stuck.

Whether you’re curious about therapy or in need of a reminder to put your own oxygen mask on first, this conversation is full of grounded, practical wisdom for anyone trying to balance passion, purpose and wellbeing.

You can connect with Lee at www.leeellawaytherapy.com or on instagram @leeellawaytherapy

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Transcript

Savanna Madden (00:16)
Hello and welcome to the Acting Coach Network podcast. I'm your host, Savanna Madden, Acting Coach, award-winning theatre school owner and business mentor for performing arts professionals who want more time, more income and zero burnout. I'm so excited to welcome today's guest. He is someone whose work sits right at the intersection of creativity and care. And I know so many of you listening are going to resonate deeply.

with what he brings to the conversation. Lee Ellaway is a person-centred counsellor and psychotherapist and the face behind Lee Ellaway Therapy, a growing private practice dedicated to supporting performers and creatives in the arts. With over 30 years experience in theatre and live events, Lee brings a deep, lived understanding of the emotional landscape that creatives move through.

from the highs of performance to the uncertainty, pressure and burnout that can come with it.

He now works primarily online via Zoom, making therapy more accessible for touring artists, freelancers, and anyone who might otherwise struggle to access support, and also offers face-to-face sessions from a small clinic in Somerset where he lives. What I love about Lee's approach is how deeply human he is. His work is warm, inclusive, and grounded in empathy, especially for those navigating people-pleasing,

identity shifts, creative crossroads, and the ongoing challenge of finding balance in such an unpredictable industry. Whether you're navigating a difficult season or just curious about what therapy can offer to artists, this conversation is one I think will truly stay with you. Lee Ellaway, welcome to the Acting Coach Network podcast.

Lee Ellaway (02:13)
Hey Savanna, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Savanna Madden (02:17)
You're very welcome.

it's so lovely to have you. I'm absolutely thrilled that you're here. So I don't want to waste any time. Let's get right into it. So let's start by setting the scene. Can you tell us a bit about your business and how your journey in the theatre world led you to becoming a therapist?

Lee Ellaway (02:36)
Yeah, sure. So my business is Lee Ellaway Therapy. It's a private counselling and psychotherapy practice. As you said in your intro, I'm based in South Somerset. So I have a small clinic in where I see people face to face. But the bulk of the work that I do is on Zoom. I concentrate mainly on working with performers and creatives in theatre and entertainment.

and working on Zoom kind of works because we could be anywhere, couldn't we? On tour, on location, so this works.

Savanna Madden (03:11)
Brilliant. And also, I guess you can speak to anybody, anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. ⁓

Lee Ellaway (03:17)
Indeed, I've got a couple

of clients currently who are on, well, ones on a European tour, ones on a world tour. yeah, setting the timetables is the difficult bit with that one. Yeah, when we're both awake, it works well, yeah.

Savanna Madden (03:23)
I mean...

I mean, you've got time differences to take into consideration, haven't you? Excellent!

That is such a great way of working. Do you think that you would have thought to do online therapy if we hadn't had the dreaded C word where we had COVID?

Lee Ellaway (03:44)
Yeah, I I was already using zoom a little bit before lockdown and Then when it all kind of happened a lot of us have got used to that way of working now, and we is kind of it's safe I mean, it's good for the environment. It saves a little bit on transport and travel and everything doesn't it so It just makes it really accessible. There's some Physical and financial

constraints and I'm looking for ways to kind of avoid any blocks in therapy. So anything that's going to stop somebody accessing the therapy they want is a bad thing. And if it's kind of public transport or the know the cost of traveling somewhere or taking time out of their day, whereas on zoom it's easy flick the laptop on and seconds later you're connected and away we go. So yeah it works. Exactly.

Savanna Madden (04:35)
Exactly and look at us here now working online

remotely. We're both in totally different areas of the country, aren't we? Fantastic. So was there a particular moment or a series of moments that made you realise you wanted to step away from performing and producing performances and focus on helping others through therapy?

Lee Ellaway (04:39)
Exactly. Absolutely.

Yeah,

so let me think. So my background is I've worked as an actor, director, producer. I've worked in performing arts training. I've had personal therapy of my own in the past, which really worked for me. I really felt the benefit of that. And I think as I did more work in performing arts training, where...

You know, like at drama school, year one is kind of foundation, year two is building on skills, year three is getting people industry ready. What that looks like in most cases is kind of agent showcases. And I was thinking more along the lines of...

mental health resilience, you know, how we make these people strong enough to get out there, you physically, but also mentally and emotionally. And I was kind of, through the theatre school work that I was doing, I was kind of casually getting involved in sort of family dynamic stuff. Some of the kids, you know, you know, some of the kids would come in, maybe had a really rotten week at school, maybe things aren't brilliant at home, but at the theatre school, everything's fine.

because they love it, it gives them a space to be themselves and it was so it was kind of that it was seeing getting involved on the edge of young people's wellness and well-being generally

kind of sparked an interest to get it. It's ironic because I've actually chosen to not work with children and young people. I'm working with adults now. But I am working with drama school third years as they're kind of getting ready. There's a couple of drama schools I work not directly with but I've kind of got a number of students from both of those.

So was kind of, it's a combination of my own personal lived experience having therapy and also seeing how important the wellbeing of young performers is. So that kind of spiked the interest again, as I said. Then when I started my training, was kind of quite quickly, I was like, actually, I don't think I want to work with young people anymore. It's going to be an adult thing. I went down that road. Never say never, but maybe I'd seen enough small people for a while, maybe.

Savanna Madden (07:02)
Yeah, no, of course.

Yeah, because obviously you and I have worked together when you were a theatre school owner and all our listeners will be very well versed in the fact that usually at the singing, dancing or acting sessions that our students participate in, it is their safe space. It's where they can express themselves and we are kind of like un...

Lee Ellaway (07:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Savanna Madden (07:29)
qualified therapists, but now you are a qualified one. ⁓ Brilliant. And I think though that there's a really great transition to be made when you go from working with young people to adults. It's a lovely crossover because you can take so much of what you've learned working with young people and thread it through your practice with adults, can't you?

Lee Ellaway (07:30)
Exactly, yeah I went the whole hog.

Yeah

And as you can imagine, a lot of times in therapy, we're actually digging back in time to when those people were children. It's like childhood experiences that they've had that have kind of shaped them and exactly that, exactly that, Yeah.

Savanna Madden (08:00)
Absolutely, inner child work, How fascinating, that's amazing.

So you launched your private practice just over a year ago. So what was that like in the beginning? What surprised you most about stepping into being a solo business owner?

Lee Ellaway (08:18)
So what struck me as different this time, I suppose, is that previously, anything that I've been involved in, either theatre school-wise, so I'm either kind of launching a new school, so effectively selling places within a school, or a workshop, or when I've been producing shows and you're selling tickets, you know, so you want people in. Previously, it's kind of been...

do enough good marketing, tell everybody, tell them all the benefits, tell them all the good stuff, and they sell out because I've been fortunate that most things that I've done in the past have been really successful. So I open a school and fill it and do a show and sell it out and all that kind of thing. With therapy, it's not quite like that. It's different because the wants...

and the needs are very different. So as much as I have done an amount of marketing and I do tell people that I'm there, what you don't expect is a queue of people on day one, I suppose. But it's been a really nice, really healthy, healthy as in easy to maintain comfortable growth. And it's kind of, it's one of those things I think where with therapy,

Savanna Madden (09:28)
Brilliant, so.

Lee Ellaway (09:33)
Some people I think it might come from word of mouth. Like if somebody's had a really good experience with a therapist and a friend of theirs is thinking about going into therapy, then maybe. But also there is still that little bit of stigma potentially around mental health. And is it, you know, if you use a really good plumber, you're gonna tell everybody, are you gonna tell everyone about your great therapist? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Don't know. Yeah.

Savanna Madden (09:54)
Hopefully that is changing but I definitely see where

you're coming from. I don't think we're quite there yet, are we? But hopefully we're moving in the right direction. So literally, forgive me, but...

Lee Ellaway (10:00)
No, no.

Savanna Madden (10:06)
forgive this pun, but a much more therapeutic way of working, I suppose, rather than that sort of hard sell of trying to get bums on seats, which as all our listeners will resonate with, you you've got to sell out your shows or sell enough tickets for it to be profitable. ⁓ You know, for some people it might even just be to break even. And, you know, you've got to get your classes full again so that you can make your profit and pay your team and all the other, you know, expenses. So, yeah, this seems like a much

Lee Ellaway (10:10)
Indeed, indeed.

Yeah, it is. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Savanna Madden (10:36)
sort of steadier ⁓ approach to business.

Lee Ellaway (10:37)
Yeah, it's karma and the team

of course at the moment is just me so it's easy to manage and easy to afford. No exactly, exactly.

Savanna Madden (10:42)
Yes, yeah, no team to manage, which is not what you're used to, is it?

So one of the things that I love is that you talk a lot about keeping therapy inclusive, ⁓ but it can be obviously a challenge. And I know a lot of us in this industry care deeply about access. So what have you learned about making support truly accessible, especially in fields

Lee Ellaway (10:56)
Hmm.

Savanna Madden (11:12)
as unpredictable as ours.

Lee Ellaway (11:14)
Yeah, I try and make my private practice as accessible as I can. I mean, I said earlier, the thing about doing it on Zoom means it is available to everybody. I've had...

physically disabled clients in the arts, know, that work as performers or creatives in the arts, ⁓ that going anywhere and getting anywhere is a task, you know. So to simplify that for them, doing it on Zoom works really well. Financially, to make it accessible as well.

Savanna Madden (11:47)
He

Lee Ellaway (11:51)
My private practice is my business. It's how I pay my bills. It's how I, you know, survive. But what I do with my time as well as I volunteer a certain number of hours each week to a couple of different charities. So that to support the idea that people that can't afford private practice can go and search elsewhere for either low cost or no cost therapy. So I do a couple of hours a week for a local charity that's just 10 minutes down the road from me, which is kind of a local community.

place. It's kind of just really generalist not like industry based or anything and then I do ⁓ currently three hours a week for a charity called Beyond Reflections which is a trans supporting agency based in Southampton. Never been there. I mean I've been to Southampton, I've never been to their offices because I do it all on Zoom because that's how we work. So just when I was training

Savanna Madden (12:41)
Wonderful. Yeah, that is fantastic.

Lee Ellaway (12:48)
⁓ I did some of my placement with Dorset Mind.

Savanna Madden (12:52)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (12:52)
and

they, so MIND across the country do a really good counselling service as well where they use learners like just student counsellors that are in the last bit of their training and it's all like closely supervised and everything but you can get free or reduced cost counselling through that as well so it is about you know if you can afford it go and get your private therapy if you can't afford it then there are places there's charities and organisations to make it just really accessible for everybody.

Savanna Madden (13:20)
That's absolutely brilliant. I know that so many people will be so grateful for that service and for people that are in the LGBTQ plus community, I'm sure it really means a lot to them as well to feel so seen and included. So that is just wonderful work. ⁓ So we talk a lot on this podcast about burnout, particularly in our wonderful industry. So

Lee Ellaway (13:34)
Yeah.

Savanna Madden (13:49)
Many performers and coaches are juggling teaching, gig work, admin, families, trying to stay creatively fulfilled on top of it all. So what do you notice come up for clients the most when they feel like they're running on empty?

Lee Ellaway (14:06)
When we start doing a bit of a deep dive on that kind of stuff, everyone's busy, everyone's trying to keep busy. We're either busy or we're trying to keep busy. So that's kind of what happens. But burnout comes from overwhelm. And overwhelm comes from taking on too many things, quite often not for ourselves but for other people. So the people pleasing thing is something that...

know we can all be guilty of to a degree but it's in therapy what we try and do is get you to focus a little bit more on yourself so when we are being brought up by our parents or caregivers and the sort of the hint from society is that being selfish is a bad thing but it really isn't

Savanna Madden (14:41)
Yeah.

Lee Ellaway (14:54)
We need to look after ourselves first, first and foremost, because if we don't look after ourselves, who will? The analogy that I use is, know, like when you're on an airplane and they're doing the safety talk, when the oxygen masks drop, put your own on first before you help anybody else. So the idea through therapy is that we'll...

Savanna Madden (15:00)
Exactly.

Yeah.

Lee Ellaway (15:15)
Try and be a little bit more boundary to try and get rid of some of that people pleasing. Focus on ourselves, putting the client at the front and center of everything and making sure that we're leaving space for ourselves and that we're doing things that are going to be positive for us.

and maybe trying to minimise a little bit of that people pleasing stuff because if you look at a really busy schedule of a bit of teaching, a bit of performing, rushing back and forth to auditions, trying to fit in other stuff around it, actually having a life in amongst all that stuff, if you can just pick out the bits that actually benefit you, the bits that are actually taking you forwards, the bits that are actually looking after you, that's where the value is.

Savanna Madden (15:46)
Of course.

Absolutely, what golden advice because I think if you asked, know, not the 10 people that question, you know, or not even that question, but talked about burnout with them, you know, nine out of 10 of those people would be able to come up with something along those lines. We all know it, but hearing it broken down like that is just so helpful. I think we should just save that little clip and just play it back to ourselves. Yeah.

Lee Ellaway (16:22)
Yeah just use that bit. Do you know but the

real real golden and the real value bit in this is not when I say it to a client it's when they basically say it to me so it's that realization it's like okay so let's talk about what standard working week looks like what goes on what happens who's that for why are you doing that just gentle questions gentle bit of challenging

Savanna Madden (16:35)
That's it. That's it.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (16:47)
And then you can see that realization on the client's face, yeah, I'm spending all my week doing stuff for other people and there's nothing in it for me. Exactly that, exactly that.

Savanna Madden (16:55)
Right. And you can't pour from an empty cup. Right. So this is the same

analogy just said a different way. ⁓ And I was saying to a member of my team today that if you've only got 40 percent to give on a given day and you give 30, that's like your 90 percent, isn't it? But we can't operate giving 40 percent all of the time. And sometimes we get to that stage when we are just so overwhelmed. So what apart from

Lee Ellaway (17:02)
Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Savanna Madden (17:24)
trying to sort of reframe our views on people pleasing or whatever other things that are contributing to the overwhelm and burnout. What else do you think helps people find balance when it feels so unbalanced sometimes?

Lee Ellaway (17:41)
Yeah, okay, so being able to take control of the things that you have actually got influence over and being able to let go of the other stuff, it's a real, again, it's a boundaries thing, you know. It's kind of like if I said to you, this time next week, I'm gonna give you a test and it's gonna have 50 questions.

Savanna Madden (17:50)
Hmm.

great.

You

Lee Ellaway (18:07)
And that's it, that's all the information that I gave you. So you can't do any prep on it. Just this thing is coming. You could either spend all day, every day stressing about it. Or you could just not think about it again until we actually do the quiz and the result is gonna be exactly the same. So which one of those is the healthy option to choose?

Do you know what mean? So take control by all means, let's get some clarity on things, take control over the stuff that you can actually change or have some impact or influence on and start letting go of the stuff that you haven't. Because if you can't control it, why are you even thinking about it? Yeah.

Savanna Madden (18:46)
Absolutely, that's also brilliant,

⁓ great way to think of it. It's just all about reframing your thought processes, isn't it, about how you see things, how you view things, and doing it in that way, in my opinion, doesn't make you feel like you're doing something selfish, because I imagine that's what contributes to a lot of this sort of stuff, is people thinking, well, I'm being selfish, putting myself first, or whatever, because they're not framing it like, you you can't operate.

Lee Ellaway (18:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Savanna Madden (19:13)
you know, unless you've got your oxygen mask on.

Lee Ellaway (19:14)
Yeah, exactly.

And it's that thing of, you know, when we say, you know, we're focusing on the client, putting them front and centre, hoping that they're going to start prioritising themselves, it's not at all to the point of arrogance or to the detriment of other people. It's about becoming the best version of you. And then you are the best employer, the best employee, the best friend, the best partner, the best son, the best daughter, whatever, because you've done the work, you know.

Savanna Madden (19:29)
gosh no, yeah.

And you can show up for

those other people can't you? Yeah, amazing. Lovely. So you also work with a lot of creatives who are at a crossroads, which I'm sure loads of people listening will resonate with as well. And they're wondering if they should keep performing, maybe move into teaching full time or pivot entirely into a brand new career. Why do you think that moment can feel so emotionally charged or

Lee Ellaway (19:45)
Exactly that. Exactly that.

Savanna Madden (20:11)
so difficult to make that decision.

Lee Ellaway (20:15)
I think we give, rightfully so, we give the training that we do and the experience that we've had a whole load of value. When we're thinking about stopping, it feels like we're giving it away, it feels like we're throwing it away. If we can reposition that and take the training and the experience.

Savanna Madden (20:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Lee Ellaway (20:40)
and view it as redirecting it so that we're sharing that knowledge and sharing that passion.

sharing those skills, if the crossover is that we're going from performing into teaching, again it's reframing it. This has come up a lot, this has come up a lot with people that are either right on the cusp, just about to leave their agent to tell them that they're done, they're done with the perform anymore, they've already been doing a bit of teaching but now they're going to...

Savanna Madden (20:52)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (21:10)
go for heads of department or people that have got their own schools that are kind of just a few classes during the week because it kind of fills a gap but now they're thinking about going the whole hog and let's do a full-on school and offer as much as we can.

Savanna Madden (21:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lee Ellaway (21:25)
And quite often you can kind of fade one in and fade one out but there becomes a tipping point when you kind of go, right, this is what I'm going to do now. And it just, no two situations are exactly the same but through therapy, having that space to talk it all through properly. You know, when you've got something in here, in therapy, we're getting it out there, we're chucking it out there for further examination and you know, so we can explore it fully. ⁓

Savanna Madden (21:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (21:53)
So I think, yeah, I think in answer to your question, I think that the feeling is I'm chucking away everything that I've done. But actually it doesn't, yeah, but it doesn't have to feel like that. know, if you think, right, I've done all that training and now I'm gonna use it for this, it still has purpose, it still has value.

Savanna Madden (21:59)
Yeah, I can definitely see how people would feel like that, 100%.

Mm-hmm.

And of course, the skills that we learn when we're training as performers are completely transferable into so many other aspects of life. So even if you are deciding to completely leave the performing arts industry and go and do something else, you're going to have so many skills to be able to transfer into whatever further career you put yourself in. Yeah, that's amazing. So one of the things I really, really want

Lee Ellaway (22:19)
Yeah. ⁓ crikey,

Yeah, totally, totally agree with that.

Savanna Madden (22:42)
year is you mentioned that people pleasing is something that you see a lot in this world so what does that usually look like for performers and coaches and how do you help someone start to set those healthier boundaries?

Lee Ellaway (22:56)
So people pleasing is when we're doing things for the benefit of others, when there's nothing in it for us and quite often it can be detrimental to us. We're doing it usually because we want to be liked, we think it's going to score us some points. But sometimes we can do it to the point of self-destruction. It's...

It's a desire to be liked and accepted and validated. But the way to come away from that is to start setting boundaries. When we do that, when you put a new boundary in place, the people that we're likely to upset, or the people who are likely to be upset, are the ones that we probably put that boundary in place because of the people that...

Savanna Madden (23:25)
Mmm.

⁓ Ain't that the truth?

Lee Ellaway (23:50)
The people that

accept those boundaries are the people that actually love you and actually value you and you know and then we'll go yes she's doing it for that reason and that's that's perfectly right. When we talk about boundaries a boundary doesn't have to be a 20 foot tall brick wall. A boundary needs to be a garden fence that you can see over and it's got a gate in it but the handle to the gate is your side. ⁓

Savanna Madden (23:56)
course.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (24:18)
So you put your boundary in place for when you need it. When you're ready to relax it, when you wanna let somebody in a little bit more, you can open that gate. And the way to start is with some soft nos. So if you're having the busiest week ever, and then I throw something extra at you, and say, Savanna, do me a favor, I need to get to Heathrow, can you drop me to the airport at three o'clock on Friday morning?

Savanna Madden (24:25)
Ooh, I love that analogy.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (24:44)
instead of you going yeah sure I can do that if you actually I'd love to help I know a taxi's really expensive down there I'd love to help but this week I just can't fit that into my week do ask me again another time but just this week I'm sorry no so it's not a hard no you know this is for this is for people that have maybe always people pleased and and and find it really difficult to say no

Savanna Madden (24:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (25:15)
maybe a soft no first. I'd love to help but on this occasion it's got to be a no. And then they may ask you again and it might come a time when you can do it, you want to do it or it might just need another soft no again you know but it's putting in those gentle nos is the first step I think.

Savanna Madden (25:18)
Yeah.

Great. And I know you predominantly work with people in our industry, but do you think it's particularly hard for people in the arts to say no?

Lee Ellaway (25:43)
Yeah, yeah I do. There's the uncertainty isn't there? I think it's not even just around a job so it's not you get offered a job and you take it even though the money's a bit rubbish and it's further away than you wanted to be and all that. We kind of take work because we want the work.

Savanna Madden (25:44)
Why do you think that is?

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (26:01)
It's the bits that aren't actually work. It's the thing of doing a favour for this person because they know so-and-so and if that person knows that you've done a favour for them, then maybe further down the line they might consider you. That's the stuff that we need to kind of filter out. That's the bit where we need to go back to what's in it for me. You what am I directly getting out of the effort that I'm putting into this?

Savanna Madden (26:13)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (26:23)
I think there's no other industry where you'd be expected to just come and do a short film because it would be great for your show reel and yeah exactly yeah exactly so it is you know and sometimes I'm not saying don't ever do those things do those things when it pleases you do those things when there's value in it for you yeah but it's feeling that pressure of like never being able to say no that's that's unhealthy yeah

Savanna Madden (26:30)
Great for your CV! Haven't we heard that one a thousand times? Absolutely!

Absolutely and if it's the right fit for you, yeah definitely.

Mm-hmm,

and I think as well as freelancers people who are self-employed That adds another layer of it as well doesn't it because some people are working from job to job from paycheck to paycheck as it were So that feeling of saying no even sorry that feeling of needing to say yes to every single job You know because of the financial stretches that can be very challenging as well but I think once your mindset is in a little bit of a

stronger place and you've got these better techniques in place like setting boundaries. For some reason I feel like those sorts of things then start to fall into place a little bit better because you're in a better mindset attracting the right jobs and I know that sounds a little bit... but I do think that there's some truth to that.

Lee Ellaway (27:30)
Yeah.

No, but it's right.

Yeah, there's a thing isn't there where there's a good amount of uncertainty in the industry.

that uncertainty can breed fear of the unknown, you know, it can develop into the fear of the unknown, when actually the unknown bit is not the bit to fear, it's our imagination is the bit to fear, because what we do is when there is unknown, we color it in with our own stuff. So we catastrophize, we go worst case scenario. So some of the work that we do in therapy as well is kind of looking at that from a slightly different perspective as well. But you know, there's opportunity within there, there's not just catastrophe, you know.

Savanna Madden (27:54)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm, fantastic. So some of our listeners might have had a lot of therapy. Some of our listeners might have never had any therapy or ever worked with a therapist before. And you've obviously talked about lots of great strategies that you discuss with your clients on how to combat the things that we've discussed. But what could someone expect from their first session with you when you've never met before? Or it could be with any therapist, but let's talk about

their first session if they were to work with you.

Lee Ellaway (28:49)
I'll rewind slightly. So before the first session, when you're looking into therapy for the first time, the most important thing for me and the biggest tip that I'll share is the relationship between the counselor or therapist and the client.

Savanna Madden (28:52)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (29:12)
is the most important thing. So when you're looking and it says this one is trained in this, this and this and this is the theory that they work with or that's the modality that they choose. All of those things are, you know, theories and ways of working. All of those are important, but none of it works if the therapeutic relationship between the therapist and the client isn't there. So the first thing I would do is make sure that you get an initial chat at least.

Savanna Madden (29:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (29:41)
with a therapist to see whether there's gonna be that chemistry to see whether you're gonna be a good fit. So the first thing that I do is I offer a free 20 minute Zoom consultation.

Savanna Madden (29:52)
Brilliant.

Lee Ellaway (29:54)
being completely honest, it's a time for me as well to check out whether I think, you know, I want to work with that person, whether I think it's going to be a good fit because it's a relationship. I don't want any clients, I'm going to look in my diary and go, God, I start tomorrow with him or whatever. don't know. And the work wouldn't be good, you know, if stupidly I pushed myself into that, the work's not going to be great. So,

Savanna Madden (30:03)
Absolutely, it's a two-way relationship, isn't it?

Hmm no one wants that

No, of course not.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (30:22)
whatever it is that is bringing you to therapy, go and look and go and talk to two or three different therapists.

before you commit. If somebody won't give you that free 15 minute, 20 minute chat, then I'd question that anyway, because that doesn't feel ethically too sound really. So yeah, top tip, talk to the therapists first. Go and see two or three. Make sure you can feel that connection. And then we look at, in the first session.

Savanna Madden (30:38)
Yes. No, I agree.

Fantastic tip.

Lee Ellaway (30:54)
There's different ways of doing things and it is entirely up to the client and we go at their speed. You this is not about me dictating or leading anything. This is all to come from the client. You can just freewheel it, which a lot of people do. So it's to come to the first session with no plan.

and the important stuff makes its way to the surface and then that's what we end up talking about. Some people that might have maybe a bit of a complex history might draw out a timeline of major events, things that have happened, stuff that they know they've not processed, things that they've put away because they don't want to think about it. They might do a whole timeline that either they can use as a prompt.

Savanna Madden (31:16)
Mmm.

Yeah, of course.

Lee Ellaway (31:36)
and kind of go for themselves as a guide as to what they want to get through. Sometimes clients will share it with me and say, sometimes they literally share it with me, like email me a copy of their timeline that they've created. But more often than not, it's kind of, this week I want to look at this. I want to talk about this. In fact, I'll share this with you because it's funny. I have a particular client who calls our sessions episodes.

Savanna Madden (31:48)
Mm-hmm.

I love

that. So good.

Lee Ellaway (32:04)
I love that, I've actually started stealing it a little bit myself. So she'll say, do you remember a couple of episodes ago we were talking about

I'm sorry, did you just replace the word sessions with episodes? Yeah, that's how I see it. So I love that. But she will say in today's episode, I want to talk about this and don't let me deviate. want I want the full 50 minutes on this and you know, let's get to the bottom of that. It's like it's like opening a box, taking the thing out and having a close look at it. The more time you spend on it, the more you look at it, the more you can talk about it, the more you explore it, the deeper you go, the more thorough the understanding is, the better the clarity.

Savanna Madden (32:18)
Absolutely.

Brilliant.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (32:42)
is around whatever that topic is you

Savanna Madden (32:44)
Hmm

yeah I love that. Episodes that is absolute gold isn't it? Yeah I'm gonna keep that that's wonderful. ⁓ We talked very early on in the episode about how we think that there is still a little bit of a stigma attached to having therapy so what misconceptions do you think people might have about therapy particularly in the performing arts industry?

Lee Ellaway (32:47)
Hmm. Yeah, you can have that. That's a keeper, isn't it? That's really good. Yeah, I love it.

I think the biggest misconception is that therapy is just for people that are in crisis. So somebody gets to a point where, you know, it's the end of the line, they don't know where to turn, they don't know what to do, so go to therapy, when actually therapy should be considered, I think, as part of your general self-care.

Savanna Madden (33:19)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Agreed.

Lee Ellaway (33:37)
You know, we'll

go to the hairdressers, we'll go to the gym, we'll get our nails done, we'll go to the dentist. All these things that we do to kind of maintain our bodies, a little bit, yeah, a little bit needs to be done up here as well. Here and here needs a little bit, yeah, head and heart needs a little bit more TLC, exactly that. So it's being of the mindset where, you know, most of the time people are gonna come to therapy for

Savanna Madden (33:45)
Mm-hmm.

on the outside. A lot of it.

Mm-hmm TLC Yeah

Lee Ellaway (34:06)
a reason. There'll be something that's upsetting them, something that's not sitting right, something that they're aware of, maybe a past trauma, but it can be a trauma with a lowercase t as well. It can be something that's happened that's left them feeling something that they don't want to feel anymore. So there could be a purpose, there's a reason, there's a primary presentation, there's something that they're bringing to therapy. So there's usually something that brings people. Once they're in and they start the sessions, then it'll

Savanna Madden (34:08)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (34:37)
opens up and it can go anywhere and everywhere and it's a really quite often quite beautiful thing to see to give somebody that safe and confidential space to talk about anything and everything so yeah so the biggest thing is the business biggest misconception is it's not just for people in crisis

Savanna Madden (34:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I love that. What

a wonderful safe space you've created for your clients to come and be able to express how they're feeling about whatever it is that they've been going through or to maintain, you know, good mental health or healthy mental health as an ongoing process. I said at the beginning that your

Lee Ellaway (35:10)
Yeah.

Savanna Madden (35:17)
in the arts spans across about 30 years Lee so I'd like to know how has your own experience in the arts shaped how you show up as a therapist?

Lee Ellaway (35:21)
Yes!

⁓ When I write down 30 plus it doesn't sound sweet but when it whenever each time you say it out loud it's like yeah I'm really quite old

Savanna Madden (35:39)
No!

Started so young darling!

Lee Ellaway (35:43)
yeah, that was it. was it.

I think taking the lived, you know, with therapy, you don't have to have lived every experience. So if you're, if you're counselling somebody that has a gambling addiction, you don't have to be, you know, a reformed gambler or whatever, or a gambler in recovery. But in our industry, there are so many specifics and the experience I think is not like any other.

industry. So I think having had the 30 plus years of experience in acting, producing, directing and not just theatre but live events and everything as well and it's all pressured and it's all performance and all the rest of it. I can bring all that with me into the sessions and then things that stand out for me. One of the most important things when you're sitting listening to a client

Savanna Madden (36:24)
Yes.

Lee Ellaway (36:40)
You don't want to interrupt if they're on a roll, if they're explaining something, you just want to go with it. Quite often industry specific terms like.

Sitzprobe or tech week or self tapes or recalls or whatever come up and a couple of times I've literally I've been sitting this into a client and they've said you know you you know we had a really bad Sitzprobe I just don't know what went wrong and I in that moment I go if this was any other therapist that I get I sorry stop excuse me can you stop can you explain what that bit means I just like completely lose the flow yeah completely lose the flow of that session you know so

Savanna Madden (37:10)
you

Absolutely. What? There's a sitzprobe? Yeah.

What a great

word that is though, can I just say. ⁓ fabulous. Well, we've just used it two or three times in this episode, so thank the Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for that. Fantastic. I am very excited on your behalf, but I would like to ask you what excites you most about the podcast that you are planning for the autumn?

Lee Ellaway (37:22)
Yeah, it's underused. It's underused. You should call the episode that, yeah.

Yeah, so this has been a long time being cooked. the practice is still relatively young and there are other things I'm doing with it, but the podcast has been a thing that I wanna do and have wanted to do since I started training, basically. I was thinking at the end of this, there's gonna be a podcast as well. It's gonna be called It's Your Cue.

There is an Instagram page for it with nothing on it yet. So you're welcome to go and have a look at it. It's @ it's your cue The intention with it excites me because it's gonna be we're creating a space where we're gonna talk about my two Favorite t's which are theatre and therapy so

Savanna Madden (38:21)
⁓ wonderful.

Lee Ellaway (38:22)
And it's going to be basically me as the host and on every episode there's going to be at least one guest and it's going to be people either from the world of theatre and entertainment and or people from mental health. So other therapists, psychologists, mental health practitioners talking about the challenges and the stuff that we all sort of work through. But the intention is that it's going to be fairly lighthearted. It's supposed to be entertaining and educational and

Savanna Madden (38:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (38:52)
hopefully. So August September time I'm going to be recording the first sort of batch of episodes and then I'm hoping October November time is when we'll actually launch it. But yeah watch this space, watch this space.

Savanna Madden (39:01)
Fantastic. Yeah, totally. How

exciting. So Lee, before we wrap up, I have one final question that I ask every guest. If you could give one piece of advice to a fellow creative who's feeling stuck or unsure right now, what would it be?

Lee Ellaway (39:20)
What would it be?

Go and get some therapy.

Savanna Madden (39:25)
Fantastic advice!

Lee Ellaway (39:28)
the one piece of advice is that you don't have to do it on your own, I suppose. And again, this does sound like another plug for therapy, if you're holding onto something, all your worries, all your troubles, if you talk to a friend, nothing changes, but it feels a little bit better because you've kind of shared it.

Savanna Madden (39:31)
Absolutely! Yeah!

Mm-hmm.

Lee Ellaway (39:51)
The downside to that is when we do talk to friends or family, they've already got a preconceived idea of what's best for you because they know you. You'll hear them saying a lot of, well, if I was you, I'd do this. Or you know what you're like, so why don't you just do this? So as much as it helps a little bit, it can sometimes be a little bit detrimental. So by...

Savanna Madden (40:00)
Mm-hmm.

Classic.

Lee Ellaway (40:16)
not suffering on your own by reaching out speaking to a therapist what you'll get is somebody that you can talk to all that all that stuff about to without the judgment without the opinion without the unwanted advice so yeah just exactly exactly helps help you see things from different perspectives you know get to the bottom of your your truth on stuff and yeah don't do it on your own don't do it on your own

Savanna Madden (40:30)
Mm-hmm, and someone that can see things objectively.

Don't do it on your own. Love

it so much. Lee, this has been so amazing and you have been so generous with your tips and advice. So thank you so much. You've obviously just told us about your podcast Instagram account, but where can people find out more about your work and if they'd like to connect with you or explore therapy, where can they find you?

Lee Ellaway (41:06)
Great, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed it. It's been really good fun. And there'll be a return invite for you as soon as mine is up and running. So we'll do that. We'll do that. So yeah, I have a website, is LeeEllawayTherapy.com. And then I'm on all the usual social media stuff as LeeEllawayTherapy. So yeah, just have a look on there and reach out and I'll be there.

Savanna Madden (41:14)
⁓ thank you so much.

Brilliant, we'll link all of that in the show notes so that people can access that really easily. ⁓ thank you so much, Lee, that has been absolutely epic. I feel like I've had my own mini therapy session as well, so really appreciated. no, what a lucky girl I am. Thank ⁓ you.

Lee Ellaway (41:34)
Lovely.

There's no invoice for this one, so that's good. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been a pleasure.

Savanna Madden (41:55)
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Acting Coach Network podcast. If you loved what you heard, make sure you're subscribed. And if you've got a moment, I'd love you to leave a quick review or share this episode with someone else in the industry who might need it. You can find me on Instagram at the Acting Coach Network. And if you're looking for support to grow your coaching business or creative career without burning out, check out the latest resources, clinics, and courses over on my Instagram.

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