At 17, I traded my ballet shoes for a conductor’s baton and now, at 23, the composer’s pen is my pal. My goal is to write music for Hollywood but what will my future hold? Influence shapes us — I am from Vienna, the city of Mozart — and at times, unexpected influences shake us up too. Martin’s story showed me not to fear career changes. He’s had a few.
Martin Fisher, a psychotherapist, former barrister and occasional actor in his 60s, is still wondering what he will become when he “grows up.” He lives in London, and while we’re both Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts, our paths first crossed in Vienna after he asked me to help guide his musical education. His speaking voice has a timbre that ought to be broadcast but is mostly heard in private by his clients who seek recovery from family trauma or addiction, or both, as he did.
Leaving home at 14 and leaving school at 18 without grades, Martin’s been “on point” for most of his working life, helping clients face-to-face. He began in youth work, then moved on to resettling ex-prisoners returning to the UK from foreign jails, but when his lack of qualifications became a roadblock, he attended night school to study law, reaching Cambridge University at age 35. It took him a decade to earn the right to wear the famous wig and gown of the English legal system and to “strut his stuff in their stuffy courts.”
And then he quit: “I loved the journey but hated the destination,” he explains, “And not for the first time I had developed a serious drinking problem, which led me to psychology because addiction runs in my family.”
We last met in London, after a Royal Society of Arts dinner with Her Royal Highness Anne, The Princess Royal, as the special guest. As we spoke, it struck me that Martin’s work as a psychotherapist is not so different from his previous roles as a youth worker or a lawyer. He’s always helped people in crisis, just wearing different hats. So, what pushed him to acting? He’s performed at the world famous Donmar Warehouse theater, read Shakespeare live on air, sung on stage at Queen Elizabeth Hall and ,most recently, acted without props at the Hampstead Theatre. His answer revealed his fearlessness in the face of uncertainty and his talent for reinventing himself.
“My social life was going to the theatre, but I couldn’t during the pandemic. So, alone in my living room, I did 120 hours of drama training over Zoom by cherry-picking courses from what was available online. A two-hour course here, a half-day course there. The most striking thing I learned was this: We end up as adults with the voice we were allowed in childhood. To be an actor meant unlearning old habits to be free to exhibit new voices. Then it dawned on me: that’s exactly what I tell my psychotherapy clients, using attachment theory to teach how patterns of behavior formed in childhood unconsciously influence us still,” Martin told me.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Martin also pursued a master’s degree in creative health, exploring how arts, nature, culture and heritage contribute to health and well-being.
Last year, Martin walked the Camino, the route made famous by the 2010 film “The Way.” For him, it’s more of a meditation than the Christian pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and there’s a well-know saying associated with it: “the path is my destination.” It’s a phrase that suits him perfectly and already, my own journey feels easier. No doubt I’ll walk many more paths in my time.
*Part one of a six-part series
Edited by: Steven London & James Sutton
