Sport Psychology: An Overview, Slides of Sports Psychology

Download Sport Psychology: An Overview and more Slides Sports Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Sport Psychology 1 Sport Psychology Gregory Moody Arizona State University November 19, 1996 Running head : SPORT PSYCHOLOGY Sport Psychology 2 Sport Psychology Introduction / Abstract Counseling and counseling psychology presents a large variety of career options beyond traditional roles. Health psychology, neuropsychology and organizational psychology are all relatively new specialization areas of great interest. Sport psychology is another area with a short but rapidly developing history that extends beyond performance enhancement and coaching techniques(Lent, 1993). Globally it is becoming intertwined with politics (Donnelly, 1996). Well over twenty journals are dedicated to sport psychology. The level of interest is magnified by many factors, including a large increase in participation in fitness activities and the growing popularity of professional athletics. Newspapers, television, Radio, and sporting goods store. Many counselors and psychologists are adding some aspects of sport psychology to their practice. Though all of the ethical and professional considerations apply to a counselor practicing sport psychology that apply to a more traditional role, this field has very special issues that are difficult and controversial. There is neither an established ethical code, nor competence standards, thus ethics, and competence issues have increased proportionally with the volume of sport psychology research and the involvement of psychologists in sports. To understand these issues, firstly we must examine what sport psychology is, then review the ethical considerations. Sport Psychology - An Overview Sport psychology focuses on six primary issues: “Motivation, personality, aggression, arousal/stress/anxiety, psychological skills training/intervention practices, and finally team processes” (Kremer & Scully, 1994, p. 7). Concerns in sport psychology are managing the factors involved in sports to deal with slumps, improving individual/team performance, coping with injuries, control of overtraining and stresses that come with athletics. (Kremer & Scully, 1994; Iknoian, 1996) Considerable research has been done in each of these areas. These six issues, however, stretch into many of our traditional psychological disciplines. Consulting opportunities exist to perform sport psychology within a clinical session (Gabbard & Halischak, 1993). Individual differences, personality, cognitive behavior, counseling Sport Psychology 5 relate to their current experiences in context. This extends to knowledge about jargon, rituals, superstitions, drugs, living conditions, relating with team members, and even rules of the game. Retirement is such an issue that is inevitable - the athlete will retire, be forced out of competition, or complete college or high school (Baillie, 1993). Educational sport psychology is an applied psychology though specialized to groups, teams and organizations. While some of the interventions are the same as in the clinical version, in educational sport psychology, these would be as applied in a seminar or training series. Table 1 also can be applied to educational sport psychology when applied in groups or teams. Coaching is generally an educational sport activity that may overlap with a psychologist role (Buceta, 1993). As researchers continue to develop the knowledge base about people, sport psychology research also grows at a rapid pace. Research runs across the variety of sporting experiences from archery to soccer, and the spectrum of psychology from cognitive interventions to family systems. Diagnosis of mental disorders is a growing concern so that sports practitioners can make appropriate referrals. Much work has been done to help these practitioners diagnose personality and mood disorders (Anderson, Denson, Brewer & VanRaalte, 1994) and relating exercise to other pathologies (Potgieter & Venter, 1995). Intervention research has primarily focused on cognitive behavioral approaches (Maynard et al., 1995; Smith et al., 1996). Tests have been developed specifically for athletics and assessing psychological skills related to sports performance (Smith, Schutz, Smoll, Ptacek, 1995). Other recent research has focused on anxiety assessment and treatment (Newton & Duda, 1995), learning life skills through sports (Danish, Petitpas & Hale, 1993), looking at enjoyment (Kimiecik & Harris, 1996), team cohesion (Spink, 1995; Copeland & Straub, 1995) the home advantage in high school basketball (Gayton & Coombs, 1995) using hypnosis to improve archery (Robazza, & Bortoli, 1995) and even benefits of taking martial arts (Kurian, Caterino & Kulhavy, 1993; Lawton, 1993; Terry & Slade, 1995). While there may be some areas that aren’t being explored, there is no shortage of volume of research in the field. Sport Psychology 6 Practitioner Competence/Credentialing There is no standard process to become involved in sport psychology. There are over 100 masters and doctorate programs in sport psychology in this country, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and South Africa (Sachs, Burke, & Butcher, 1995) and there is a directory of USOC approved sports consultants, but the types of training, the titling (what can go on your business card), and certification is not universally accepted as a standard. The USOC and the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP) have different guidelines for sport psychology services. The USOC identifies three broad activities engaged in by sport psychologists and therefore has three different titles for practitioners: Clinical Sport Psychologist, Educational Sport Psychologist, and Research Sport Psychologist. This is consistent with the three areas of research that are recognized and described above. These areas have their own credentialing as follows: Clinical Sport Psychologist: • Degree in clinical/counseling psychology or psychiatry from an accredited American Psychological Association (APA) university. • Meets standards required for full membership in the APA or American Psychiatric Association. • Psychologists must have a current license/certification. Psychiatrists must have a current license and be board-eligible in psychiatry as well as meeting minimum standards set for physicians engaged in USOC sports medicine programs. • Demonstrated experience as an athlete, coach or practitioner in the application of psychological principles to sports. • A personal interview with a Review Board member may be requested. Educational Sport Psychologist: • Doctorate in psychology or psychiatry or in a related field with background in psychology that would meet standards required for full membership in the APA or American Psychiatric Association. Sport Psychology 7 • At least 3 years of demonstrated post-doctoral experience as an athlete, coach or practitioner in the application of psychological principles to sports. • Reference letters from recognized institutions/organizations related to the applicant’s teaching educational facilitation skills • A personal interview with a Review Board member may be requested. Research Sport Psychologist: • Doctorate in psychology or psychiatry or in a related field with background in psychology that would meet standards required for full membership in the APA or American Psychiatric Association. • Evidence of scholarly research contributions to the field of sport psychology. • Reference letters from recognized institutions/organizations related to research conducted by the applicant. • A personal interview with a Review Board member may be requested. ( USOC, 1983) Recognition in one of these three areas allows one to be published in the USOC directory of sport psychology practitioners. AAASP's credentialing vehicle is to become a Certified Consultant, AAASP (CC, AAASP). This credential refers to recognition by AAASP that the person has attained a professional level of experience and knowledge in applied sport psychology. AAASP defines the role of the Certified Consultant to include: • Educating individuals, groups and organizations about psychological factors in sport • Helping develop specific cognitive, behavioral, psycho-social and affective skills for application in sport, exercise and physical activity context. This may include goal-setting, concentration, imagery, moral reasoning and group cohesion. • Help players control arousal, anxiety, audience effects and decision making skills. • Provide information to the sport community regarding communication, team cohesion, adherence to exercise, motivation and program development and evaluation. AAASP's requirements for becoming a CC, AAASP include work in 14 different knowledge areas: Sport Psychology 10 Table 2 - Ethical Issues in Sport Psychology - Rankings of Unethical Behavior (Petitpas, Brewer, Rivera & VanRaalte , 1994). Rank Description of Issue Percent Who Judged it Un- Ethical 1 Promoting unjustified expectations through advertising 89.1 2 Including unverified claims in promotional materials 88.5 3 Claiming affiliation with organizations that falsely implies sponsorship or certification 86.3 4 Providing inadequate supervision to trainees 86.1 5 Insulting or ridiculing a client in their absence 83.6 6 Betting on a team or individual with whom you are working 81.2 7 Allowing out-of-town clients to reside in your home while services are being provided 81.2 8 Using Psychological Tests (e.g. MMPI) without attaining appropriate user qualifications 78.2 9 Sharing athlete data with coaches without athlete's written consent 76.4 10 Practicing without clarifying who is and who isn't the client (e.g. coach, athlete, management) 72.7 Obviously betting on (or against) a team based on your client relationship is unethical, but there are also other concerns illustrated here such as confidentiality, dual relationship, supervision, and credentialing concerns in sport psychology. Confidentiality is an issue here that may be worsened by the visibility of the individual athlete. Based on table 2, it appears that the psychology professionals do not wish to break confidentiality, yet there may be high pressures to do so from the organization, media and due to health concerns (i.e. a player playing when he/she is hurt and shouldn’t). Using clients names in advertising may certainly damage a clients reputation and unfairly bias against those practitioners who may not feel right in using Sport Psychology 11 clients names. This is a tough issue because to many athletes this is hard to make it a “secret” activity, yet at the same time the psychologist may feel a need to demonstrate experience and results with their client to get additional business (i.e. testimonials). As listed elsewhere, coaches goals may conflict with the psychologist and result in asking the practitioner to release information without consent (e.g. to decide whether to cut a player). Recently I attended the Arizona Psychological Association conference on sport psychology where one of the sport psychologists passed out a letter from Jeff Feagles, a Cardinals football player extolling the virtues of the psychologist’s help (Feagles, 1996). This might persuade us to believe that it is common for players not to mind breaking confidentiality since it is often only in the context of improving performance. Players, notably, are not as quick to derogate another athlete if they are known to see a sport psychologist (VanRaalte, Brewer, Brewer & Linder, 1992). Of course, informed consent must be given before any client's name could be used. Table 3 lists some interesting confidentiality items that were not judged to be highly un-ethical in the AAASP Survey. Table 3 - Ethical Issues in Sport Psychology - Significant Confidentiality Issues (Petitpas et al., 1994). Description of Issue Percent Who Judged it Un- Ethical Reporting abusive coaching practices 10.9 Reporting an athlete who uses cocaine 20.0 Reporting an athlete who uses steroids 20.6 Reporting an athlete's gambling activity 23.6 Reporting an athlete who committed rape 22.4 Reporting an athlete who committed burglary 21.2 This data indicates that practitioners have a very different attitude toward reporting athletes in these circumstances. Reporting drug use in traditional counseling is not common, more likely we would try and help the client get other treatment, but in this arena (no pun intended) it is not thought of as that un- ethical. Note though, that reporting drug use happened 2.4% of the time(Petitpas et al., 1994). Sports provides a background of broadly varied confidentiality issues. Sport Psychology 12 Supervision is very important for the practitioner, not only to learn types of interventions, and get feedback, but to pick up the “culture” surrounding the particular sport. The supervisor/supervisee relationship forms the model for future practice. Ethics in supervision cover at least two broad areas. Firstly, monitoring of the supervisee’s ethics and competence in the athlete-client / counselor relationship. The second area is in the relationship with the supervisee and supervisor. In the latter, the ethics are quite similar to counseling psychology, while in the former their are some more complicated issues. The supervisor is very important in helping the supervisee deal with issues such as when a client wants to play with an injury because pro scouts are watching, but this may result in some permanent damage. The “do not harm” maxim in application to sports is valid, but what the athlete chooses to do or not do is ultimately his decision. (Anderson, 1994) Another troubling statistic is that only 30% of the above AAASP respondents said that they were receiving any kind of supervision. (Petitpas, et al., 1994). While typical dual relationship issues apply (e.g. sexual relationships, etc.), there are some additional considerations that effect the role of the counselor in an athletic relationship. One such dilemma is when the sport psychologist is the team’s coach. Combining these two roles may cause conflict since the psychology “side” of the coach-psychologist protects the welfare of the client (i.e. “do no harm”), yet the coach side may be interested primarily in the team’s success (i.e. “win at all costs”). Some suggest that this is a role that should be avoided (Ellickson & Brown, 1990) while others contend that it is a role that may have advantages (e.g. coach can have more insight into players, its more economical, the psychologist doesn't have to answer to anyone) if handled properly (Buceta, 1993). In fact, AAASP certification as a CC, AAASP is worded so as not to exclude coaches and coaching is listed as a means of achieving a certifying requirement (Burke & Johnson, 1992). In addition, the AAASP survey results show that only 21.8% of sports practitioners felt that this was never ethical (Petitpas et al., 1994, p 143). This may be one reason that the USOC distinguishes between educational and clinical sport psychologists. Credentials, as discussed previously are not broadly accepted. There is controversy surrounding whether there should be any certification (Anshel, 1993). While many practitioners are from other fields, Sport Psychology 15 Ellickson, K.A. & Brown, D.R.,(1990). Ethical Considerations in Dual Relationships: The Sport Psychologist-Coach. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2, 186-190. Feagles, J., (1996). Letter to Dr. Andy Hogg. Unpublished Manuscript,. Gabbard, C. & Halischak, K., (1993). Consulting Opportunities: Working with Student-Athletes at a University. 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