Stigmas in Sport and Exercise Psychology

With the field of sport and exercise psychology ever expanding and with both coaches and athletes more and more looking into the area of it, I wanted to address what sport psychologists do and the stigmas that still surround sport and exercise Psychology and hopefully debunk some prevalent assumptions in the area.

Stigma 1:

Sport psychologists are only for those with mental health problems, WRONG.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with admitting you have any form of mental health challenge as this is the first step to helping overcome those challenges. However, a lot of athletes, coaches and parents of athletes don’t need a sport psychologist because of a mental health challenge. The work of a sport Psychologist can be broadly defined as assisting with behaviour change [1]. Take that as what you will, but the majority of work, sport psychologists deal with isn’t to do with clinical mental health challenges such as depression or schizophrenia. A lot of Sport psychology work is based around supporting an athlete’s current successful behaviours and helping to reduce the hindering behaviours. This doesn’t necessarily mean that an athlete or coach needs to be struggling with something at the time they think they need to speak with a sport psychologist, they can use one to support themselves in the broad manner a psychologist can help with.

Stigma 2:

Sport psychology is for the psychologically weak [2], WRONG.

The phrase mentally weak is quite a broad term and you’d probably find this can mean something completely different depending on who you ask and can be quite tough to define. However, you would choose to define it, sport psychologists don’t necessarily work with athletes that have a problem, a lot of the time, building on the already ‘psychologically strong’ skills an athlete has is part of the role. Take for example an athlete that can cope under pressure well without any formal training with coping with pressure, a sport psychologist can help to understand what makes that athlete good at that skill and assist with refining that ability so that instead of coping with pressure, they can excel under the same pressure.

Stigma 3:

Sport Psychology is only a quick fix, WRONG.

Whilst there are a range of aspects that are designed to help athletes cope with issues temporarily, a lot of work sport psychologists do is centred around long-term benefits. For example, there are a range of techniques that can be taught to an athlete in order to cope with a short-term problem or deal with a situation that happens irregularly for example, imagery, relaxed breathing, positive self-talk. These can all be used for long-term benefits such as being able to cope with a similar situation that comes up regularly. This generally will be a small part of work a sport psychologist does with and athlete as other subjects such as learning about the athlete and teaching them about their mind may provide long-term benefits.

Stigma 4:

Sport psychology is just for elite athletes, WRONG.

All levels of athletes, coaches and parents of athletes can benefit from sport psychology work. The range of benefits those working with a sport psychologist are so broad they can start at improving enjoyment for a sport all the way to performing at the highest level in their sport. Sport and exercise psychology is so broad that some aspects can be applicable to other areas of life such as business. Businesses worldwide can benefit from some of sport psychology principles such as the performance enhancing aspects or personality profiling for staff to understand how to work better together in teams.

These are not the extent of stigmas surrounding the area by any means, however, these are some of the things that I have personally encountered. If you’d like to learn a little more about sport psychology, feel free to get in touch!

[1] Keegan, R. (2015). Being a sport psychologist. Macmillan International Higher Education.

[2] Yambor, J., & Connelly, D. (1991). Issues confronting female sport psychology consultants working with male student-athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 5(4), 304-312.