Section 00
Well-being and Coping with Stress
Why emotional health and stress awareness aren’t soft extras in creative careers, and why mentors who overlook them risk missing what learning actually needs to thrive.
Section 01
Introduction
Well-being and coping with stress are increasingly recognised as fundamental dimensions of any learning and professional development process. This is particularly true within creative education and creative careers, where individuals are often required to navigate uncertainty, emotional exposure, precarious working conditions and high levels of self-expectation. In such contexts, personal well-being is not an accessory skill, but a core condition for sustainable learning, creative growth and meaningful mentoring relationships.
MULAB works at the intersection of creative education, facilitation and well-being, supporting young people engaged in artistic and cultural practices. Our approach is grounded in the belief that learning environments must be designed not only to develop technical or professional competences, but also to actively support mental and emotional health. This perspective is especially relevant when working with young people and emerging creative practitioners, for whom periods of transition, training and career development often coincide with high levels of stress and vulnerability.
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The topic of well-being and coping with stress connects directly to creative mentoring, as mentoring relationships rely on trust, continuity and the creation of a protected space for reflection and exchange. Effective mentoring requires time, emotional availability and a shared awareness of personal limits and resources. Without attention to well-being, mentoring risks becoming purely performance-oriented, overlooking the human dimensions that enable learning to take place.
Within broader educational and socio-cultural contexts, there is a growing need to recognise stress as a structural issue rather than an individual failure. Creative fields, in particular, tend to normalise overload, insecurity and competition, often leaving individuals without adequate tools to recognise moments of crisis or to seek support. Addressing well-being within training and mentoring processes therefore represents both a pedagogical and an ethical responsibility.
MULAB’s approvach integrates experiential methods drawn from theatre, group work and facilitation practices. These methods embodied experience, emotional awareness and relational dynamics as entry points to self-awareness and resilience. Through practices that cultivate trust, empathy and presence, participants are encouraged to explore their own inner landscape in the present moment, while also learning to attune to the emotional states of others.
Section 02
Tools and Resources
CARE: Culture for Mental Health (Culture Action Europe)
CARE is a European initiative that explores the role of arts and culture in promoting mental health and well-being, with a specific focus on young people and cultural workers. It provides training activities, expert exchanges, workshops and digital materials that support cross-sector collaboration between culture, health and social fields.
Culture and Health Platform (Culture Action Europe)
This platform gathers policy insights, webinars and case studies on the relationship between culture and mental health. It supports artists, educators and cultural professionals in understanding how creative practices can enhance emotional well-being and resilience.
Mental Health & Well-Being Toolkit – EURORDIS
An open-access toolkit offering practical strategies, exercises and peer-support approaches to strengthen emotional resilience and cope with stress. While developed in a health context, its tools are transferable to mentoring and creative learning environments.
Culture for Health – Evidence Review (EU)
A European evidence review analysing the impact of cultural participation on physical and mental well-being. It provides research-based arguments linking culture, social inclusion and health outcomes, useful for programme design and advocacy.
WHO – HEALTH EVIDENCE NETWORK SYNTHESIS REPORT 67
This report synthesizes the global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being, with a specific focus on the WHO European Region. Results from over 3000 studies identified a major role for the arts in the prevention of ill health, promotion of health, and management and treatment of illness across the lifespan
Cultural Welfare Center (CCW)
The Cultural Welfare Center (CCW) is an Italian non-profit competence centre dedicated to promoting the virtuous relationship between culture, health and well-being. Through research, publications, public events and capacity-building activities, CCW advocates for cultural participation as a resource for psychological and social well-being. Its work explores how cultural practices can support mental health, social inclusion and quality of life, and also offers methodological reflection on cultural welfare models. The Centre brings together interdisciplinary expertise to support policy makers, practitioners and organisations across culture, education, health and social care at national and European levels.
Voices of Culture – Culture and Well-Being Dialogues
Outputs from the structured dialogue between the European Commission and the cultural sector, addressing issues such as youth well-being, cultural participation and resilience. The reports offer recommendations and contextual framing for culture-based well-being strategies.
Section 03
Cross-Thematic Resources
Report Io Sono Cultura 2025
Io Sono Cultura 2025, published by Fondazione Symbola and Unioncamere, provides an updated overview of...
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Io Sono Cultura 2025, published by Fondazione Symbola and Unioncamere, provides an updated overview of the Italian cultural and creative economy, offering valuable structural context for understanding the conditions shaping creative careers. The report refers to mental wellbeing in several contexts, highlighting young people’s mental health, early childhood development and social inclusion as public health priorities. It also mentions initiatives such as the SPES project of the University of Turin, aimed at developing socio-emotional skills to address early signs of psychological distress. In the section “The value of culture and creativity”, participation in cultural activities is associated with improved physical and mental health, as well as strengthened social cohesion and civic engagement.
Rosetta Arts
Hub for art and creative learning in the heart of east London...
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Hub for art and creative learning in the heart of east London through inclusive visual arts programmes that nurture creativity , wellbeing and creative careers.
Fondazione Patrizio Paoletti
Fondazione Patrizio Paoletti is a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing research...
Details
Fondazione Patrizio Paoletti is a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing research and education across the fields of neuroscience, psycho-pedagogy, training, and social development.
Associazione Agave
"A.G.A.V.E. (Associazione Giovani Adulti Volontari Europei) is a non-profit organisation...
Details
A.G.A.V.E. (Associazione Giovani Adulti Volontari Europei) is a non-profit organisation founded with the aim of responding in a concrete and meaningful way to the need for the protection and promotion of mental health.
Its mission is rooted in the belief that mental well-being is a fundamental component of overall quality of life. To this end, the association brings together diverse experiences and competences in order to design and implement projects focused on awareness-raising, information, prevention, and research in the field of mental health.
Creative Arts Interventions for Stress Management and Prevention
Stress is one of the world’s largest health problems, leading to exhaustion, burnout, anxiety...
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Stress is one of the world’s largest health problems, leading to exhaustion, burnout, anxiety, a weak immune system, or even organ damage. In Germany, stress-induced work absenteeism costs about 20 billion Euros per year. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Central Federal Association of the public Health Insurance Funds in Germany ascribes particular importance to stress prevention and stress management as well as health enhancing measures. Building on current integrative and embodied stress theories, Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) or arts interventions are an innovative way to prevent stress and improve stress management. CATs encompass art, music, dance / movement, and drama therapy as their four major modalities. In order to obtain an overview of CATs and arts interventions’ efficacy in the context of stress reduction and management, we conducted a systematic review with a search in the following data bases: Academic Search Complete, ERIC, Medline, Psyndex, PsycINFO and SocINDEX. Studies were included employing the PICOS principle and rated according to their evidence level. We included 37 studies, 73% of which were randomized controlled trials. 81.1% of the included studies reported a significant reduction of stress in the participants due to interventions of one of the four arts modalities.
Section 04
Topic-Related Activities
Workshop Context & Background
The following activities are designed to address well-being and coping with stress through simple, transferable practices rooted in theatrical training and group facilitation. They draw on the experience of the Skopje Co-Production Lab and on participants’ responses, which highlighted the need for safe spaces, trust, emotional awareness and time to build meaningful relationships within creative learning and mentoring contexts.
Creative paths often expose individuals to uncertainty, performance pressure and emotional vulnerability. These exercises aim to support mentors and educators in creating environments where participants feel safe to express themselves, recognise stress signals and develop self-awareness. Rather than focusing on performance or outcomes, the activities prioritise presence, listening and relational dynamics.
Each exercise can be adapted to different group sizes and settings, including non-theatrical contexts. No specialised equipment is required, and all activities can be facilitated by mentors or educators without formal theatre training. Reflection questions are included to encourage individual and collective processing, helping participants connect embodied experience with their everyday creative or learning practices.
Section 05
Mentor Insights
Martina G. Cipolletti
Listening as a Practice: Ethics, Boundaries and Embodied Awareness in Mentoring
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In my work as a cross-disciplinary designer, relational counsellor and professional coach or trainer, what works most effectively to manage stress when mentoring young creative practitioners is the conscious normalisation of fatigue, limits and not-knowing. Many emerging creatives experience stress not only because of external pressures, but because they feel compelled to appear competent, articulate and in control at all times (this could apply to everyone and mentors as well) . Actively legitimising uncertainty allows pressure to decrease and restores trust in the learning process.
Central to this approach is genuine listening. For mentors, listening means suspending assumptions, setting aside one’s artistic ego and resisting the impulse to “know better” than the mentee. It requires becoming a medium rather than a protagonist, facilitating the mentee’s capacity to identify their own strategies, rhythms and objectives.
I have also learned that it is often necessary to work through the body before working through language. In one group facilitation session, a participant shared a highly stressful and personal situation and became emotionally overwhelmed, monopolising the space and increasing her own distress to the tears. I acknowledged her discomfort, invited her to quantify it on a scale from zero to ten, and guided a brief autogenic training exercise involving the whole group. Once bodily tension had eased, I gave closure by asking her to visualise without sharing a single, achievable action that could lower her distress by one point. I then offered individual support during the break and outside the group setting and resumed the session.
Equally crucial is a clear awareness of professional boundaries. Mentoring, counselling and psychotherapy are distinct practices. I consider ongoing supervision and continuous professional development non negotiable in order to recognise when distress exceeds the scope of mentoring. When this occurs, I actively support and accompany the mentee in accessing appropriate psychotherapeutic care, and, when possible, collaborate ethically with other professionals. Respecting these limits is not a restriction, but a prerequisite for responsible and effective mentoring that truly supports mental well-being.
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Massimo Varchione
Learning, Not Performing: A Strategy for Stress.
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When a music student freezes because they feel “not good enough,” help from the teacher isn’t always enough: that distance can increase shame and pressure. That’s why I use a peer as close support—a kind of “side-by-side” mentor. The first step is a non-judgmental environment: we’re here to learn, not to prove ourselves. It’s practice, not performance. The result is twofold: the student receiving help learns that the block can be overcome; the student offering help strengthens skills and confidence by sharing a method, not by “showing” they’re better. In just a few sessions the atmosphere changes: difficulty becomes something you can talk about, not something to hide. Another key point: pressure spikes when a task feels like “everything at once.” So I break it into smaller parts and provide support tools (frameworks, rules, examples). Then I choose an easy entry step: the goal is to make something happen immediately. When the hands start moving, the mind stops spiraling. During the work I give quick micro-feedback—not a full correction, but short signals that guide (“this works,” “here you have two options,” “here you need a constraint”). That way the student isn’t left alone with the anxiety of realizing too late they went in the wrong direction. At the end, we do a one-minute wrap-up: what unlocked you? what slowed you down? what will you use next time? This process memory builds confidence in the method, not in talent. Over time, students learn to recognize the early signs of panic and know which step to choose to get back into the work.
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Anna Maria Piccoli
To rehearse is the freedom to make mistakes.
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In my work training young people involved in theater and live performance, I try to prevent stressful situations and foster expressiveness by increasingly focusing on the process rather than the outcome, starting from the etymology of the term “rehearsal.” “To rehearse” is to repeat in English, “repetition” in French, “provare” (to try) in Italian. A process in which mistakes are not only expected, but indispensable. Accepting mistakes and imperfections, strengthening the group’s ability to listen, wards off anxiety and helps focus on a training path that will leave its mark and generate individual and social benefits and impact, even if an artistic career doesn’t take off immediately or at all. “Repetition” and practice are, first and foremost, a physical gesture. A physical gesture free from the result.
In a historical moment that pushes performance so hard, that consumes and burns everything quickly, we focus on the time needed for the gesture to consolidate, with commitment and self-awareness, while learning to recognize and manage states of anxiety and frustration.We therefore encourage students to repeat their exercises several times, asking their peer group, based on ecological communication, to suggest and correct any issues. This builds trust and listening, and prepares for the upcoming confrontation with the real audience. If an emotional breakdown occurs, which is quite typical in theatre practice, where personal emotions easily surface among practitioners, we try to deal with it lightly, and, as soon as the student has recovered, we immediately invite him or her to try again, emphasizing that the goal is first and foremost to have fun. Our national context doesn’t offer many career opportunities for actors, especially theater actors, so frustration can be significant, especially over time. We try to address this by demonstrating all the possible applications and skills that can be applied socially through a solid theater education, ensuring that all the efforts made will never be wasted. Theater is a facilitator because it’s first and foremost a group effort, something we do together that’s impossible to do alone, and the relationships it creates contribute in themselves to well-being. In fact, it’s also a widely used tool in medicine, for social inclusion and group management.
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Erica De Martini
Knowing Yourself Through SEL: Social Emotional Learning as a Path to Well-Being and Stress Management.
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Knowing oneself is a foundational step toward personal well-being, especially for young people navigating complex emotional, social, and academic pressures. In my work with youth, I use the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) methodology as a practical and relational tool to support self-awareness, stress management, and emotional balance. SEL is not only an educational framework, but also a powerful mentoring approach that fosters growth through connection.
At the core of SEL is self-awareness: the ability to recognize one’s emotions, thoughts, strengths, and limits. Through guided reflection, dialogue, and experiential activities, young people learn to name what they feel and understand how emotions influence their behaviors and decisions. This awareness is essential for managing stress, as it allows individuals to notice early signs of overload and respond with healthier strategies.
SEL also develops self-management skills, such as emotional regulation, resilience, and goal setting. In training sessions, these skills are practiced in a safe environment, helping young people build confidence in their capacity to face challenges. Stress is no longer seen as something to eliminate, but as a signal to listen to and manage constructively.
Within a mentoring relationship, SEL becomes even more effective. The mentor models empathy, active listening, and emotional regulation, creating a trusting space where young people feel seen and supported. This relational dimension transforms learning into lived experience. By integrating SEL into mentoring, young people not only learn techniques for well-being and stress management, but also develop a deeper, more compassionate understanding of themselves—an essential foundation for personal and social growth.
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Section 06
Documentation
Photo Gallery
Videos
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Section 07
Online Workshop Output
Workshop Summary
The session aimed to frame well-being as a core condition for sustainable creative development and to strengthen mentors’ capacity to recognise stress, emotional dynamics, and relational complexity within creative learning environments.
The workshop opened with an introduction by the MuLab team outlining the project context and the role of mental and physical well-being in creative education and career. Participants were invited to consider how stress is often a structural feature of creative sectors characterised by uncertainty, competition, and precarious working conditions. The session emphasised the importance of self-awareness practices, collective support, and the ability to recognise when professional help is needed.
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A keynote contribution by Enrico Ferraro, President of the Mental Health Council of ASL RM1, explored the relational dimensions of mentoring and their impact on students’ psychological well-being. Ferraro highlighted three essential factors identified by young learners: the mentor’s competence, the ability to offer a vision of future possibilities, and a psychologically attentive relationship. He emphasised affection as genuine curiosity towards the student, the importance of presence within the educational relationship, and the need for mentors to analyse their own emotional reactions in order to better understand students’ underlying needs.
Participants then engaged in breakout sessions based on shared reflective practice. They discussed challenging situations with students, debated the concept of the “model student”, and reflected on the role of mistakes in learning processes. Several contributions illustrated how negative experiences, such as conflict, frustration, or unmet expectations, can be reframed as opportunities for growth, both for mentors and mentees. Discussions converged around the idea that effective educational relationships rely on openness, empathy, and adaptability rather than fixed behavioural models.
Key engagement moments included the exchange of real teaching/mentoring/training experiences, peer reflection on emotional reactions in mentoring contexts, and the collective reframing of failure as a learning resource. Materials produced during the session included the workshop presentation slides, Ferraro’s keynote reference materials, and documented reflections from the breakout discussions.
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