So let’s all of us get out of your own way. But sure as anything there is in this life, mental skills training is perhaps the most important part of your training routine. Come work with me and understand that mental skills training is just like everything else we do in sports to reach the next level. Until then, I will shout at the wind and perhaps others will listen. These are just some thoughts to go along with my last few posts. When we get that through our head, perhaps everyone else will as well. We teach, consult, counsel athletes on mental skills. If there are other issues we can help them in other ways. I’ve been working with athletes for 35 years and have only referred athletes to psychotherapists three times. requiring psychotherapy or other interventions. Understand, I am not talking about working with depression, eating disorders, drug and alcohol related issues, etc. Since we all don’t get that, we are stuck. Hence the need for a paradigm shift. When we understand that, then we can share that with athletes, teams and others associated with sport. We help them discover as all good teachers do, elements that are missing from their skills set, in order to perform at a higher level. The bottom line is we teach skills to athletes. There is still the bond of trust between us, the athlete and team. We want legal confidentiality between doctor and patient. We want to be like the team medical doctor. We are no longer different from the rest of the sports science team (we have a natural insecurity because others think our science is soft). Paradigm Shift This is a shift, it’s a big shift.
If there is no shame, then doing mental training becomes a part of the program. If there are no secrets, there is no shame. The conversations are private, but the discussion is open to the staff. The athletic trainer does not announce that an athlete has a weak hamstring to the world (injury reports aside). The public is not invited, but the team maybe. Just as the conversation between sport science staff and athlete are. Helping athletes and teams develop emotional intelligence is not the same as working with someone who is paranoid (no Jim Harbaugh jokes). We teach athletes to have confidence, to get over blocks, to cope with stress and to focus better. We are enamored with our pedigree. We talk about teaching skills, but will not allow that we are sport scientists, teachers and coaches. Because we still think of ourselves as psychologists. When sport psychology notices a flaw in a player’s arsenal, be it stress, confidence or focus, we can only talk with the player behind closed doors. Unless of course it’s Tebow, then nothing will help apparently.
If a quarterback has a poor throwing motion a bio-mechanics expert might go to the staff and suggest ways to fix it. If the athlete has too much fat, a nutritionist tells the athlete and coaches the player needs to eat differently.
If a football player needs more strength, the exercise physiology team with strength and conditioning people tell the athlete and the coaching staff what the player needs to do to perform at the next level. If sport psychology was equal to other sport sciences, then a lot of our issues would go away. It is time we shift gears or paradigms, even if it means having to do so with a bit of humility (something I often discuss with athletes). Maybe the issue is not all a team issue, maybe it’s our issue too. My new friend’s statement got me thinking. Sport Psychology Consultant is there all of the time. My answer was always about integration of mental training into the team. I’ve talked and written about this for years. Trust on both sides has been an issue as long as I can remember. If they work for the athlete, how does the manager or coach trust that they are getting the correct information about the athlete’s state of mind. If they work for the team, then how does the athlete trust them? The athlete might reveal something which could get them benched, if the SPC told the staff. He felt the major issues revolved around who the Sport Psychology person worked for. In one of our first conversations he said he knew many sports psychologists both in his days in the USSR and now in Israel. He was born in the old Soviet Union and now resides in Israel. I’ve not really delved into what that means.
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