Bruce Springsteen has disclosed he’s been seeing a therapist since 1982. Speaking to David Remnick for an interview in The New Yorker magazine, Springsteen admitted, “You cannot underestimate the fine power of self-loathing in all of this.”

Springsteen reportedly began attending counsellling sessions while he was working on his Nebraska album.

“My issues weren’t as obvious as drugs,” Springsteen told Remnick. “They were quieter – just as problematic, but quieter. With all artists, because of the undertow of history and self-loathing, there is a tremendous push toward self-obliteration that occurs onstage … You are free of yourself for those hours; all the voices in your head are gone. Just gone. There’s no room for them. There’s one voice, the voice you’re speaking in.”

“I’m 30 years in analysis!” Springsteen said. “You think, I don’t like anything I’m seeing, I don’t like anything I’m doing, but I need to change myself, I need to transform myself. I do not know a single artist who does not run on that fuel. If you are extremely pleased with yourself, nobody would be fucking doing it! Brando would not have acted. Dylan wouldn’t have written ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. James Brown wouldn’t have gone ‘Unh!’ He wouldn’t have searched that one-beat down that was so hard. That’s a motivation, that element of ‘I need to remake myself, my town, my audience’ – the desire for renewal.”

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