Greetings from Boston! I am sorry I am not able to join you in person this morning. Right now I am very much missing getting to see you all. But it is a true pleasure and honor to share thoughts about efficacious sports psychology practice with all you wonderful folks. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it so much and I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you a little bit even though it is remote. That said, rather than dictate slide content, I will provide some reflections here and let you peruse the text in this deck at your leisure. Let's jump into it. Thanks to athletes such as Michael Phelps, who have chosen to be public advocates for mental health pursuits, and to share the impact such pursuits have had on their lives and careers, sports psychology is at an all-time high in both graduate study interest and professional and collegiate sport adoption. But a wide range of practices fall under the rubric of sports psychology. Take anxiety for example. One athlete may be trying to cope with a generalized anxiety disorder, while a teammate of his or hers is working to overcome performance anxiety, a very different beast, while yet another teammate is an adrenaline junkie who sometimes underperforms because of over-arousal. The three share common goals, but require very different tools to perform at their best. Within an organization, a sole practitioner model of sports psychology rarely conserves the gamut of athletes' psychological needs. By the way, if you're interested in learning more about Phelps' story, check out his work with the mobile app Talkspace. At first pass, the cases presented here may seem to be similar, but upon differential diagnosis diligence, one of these athletes was discovered to suffer from a personality disorder not related to sport, while the other had never been taught effective pre-practice and pre-game psychological preparation strategies. Mismatching the issue with the treatment can be career-ending. The sports psychologist, therefore, must not skimp on intake and histories, and must be actively attuned to the whys, whens, hows, and whos of referral. The arguably more popular—sexier, if you will—division of sports psychology centers on assisting already healthy and elite athletes with their faster, higher, stronger quests. Forgive me, it's Olympics time. But a performance psychologist working in this area, ill-equipped to identify and provide alternate resources for the large volume of under-the-surface mental health challenges, will be a liability. As too will be a clinical psychologist who wants to be, quote, part of the action. Teams that find a way to offer, and most importantly coordinate, a diversity of practitioners will far outperform teams that hire one sports psychologist and saddle him or her with trying to treat, quote, all things psychology. In fact, being outwardly deliberate about partitioning subspecialties of sports psychology allows all involved to be much more efficient at their craft and in a more supportive and productive environment. In the fast-paced, win-today, incredibly time-demanding world of sport, we all know the importance of the variable of efficiency without sacrificing quality. An interesting conflict, or perceived conflict, can arise. Overusing and overuse are well-established pitfalls to be avoided. We're all acutely aware of those. But a substantial percentage of athletes, and this is the data point that can be eye-opening for many, struggle with under-motivation, with fear of failure, doubt, lagging resilience, and the like. There is a reason why coaches need to crack the whip from time to time. But at what point does enhancing confidence, focus, commitment, toughness go too far? Narrowly defined sports psychology practice often grossly errors in establishing a healthy pursuit of excellence zone. A multi-practitioner model works as an excellent fail-safe. The very best programs, not surprisingly, produce not only the winning-est athletes, but the happiest ones, too. When you catch a minute, maybe on your plane, train, or automobile ride home—cap tip to Steve Martin and John Candy there—I recommend that you dig into Nordic World Cup champion Jessie Diggins' blog and pick up a copy of her 2020 autobiography titled Brave Enough. Jessie is the first-ever athlete in U.S. history to win a gold medal in cross-country skiing, and she's one of the most positive, happiest people you will ever meet. Her thoughtful and dedicated, career-long approach to sports psychology is spectacular. For those of you just starting out in this realm, that is a great place to start. I would encourage you all to bring her into your organization to talk about what she's been able to achieve and how she's been able to do so. Keep in mind, the diversity of the field of sports psychology is a strength and a curse. It behooves us to think about not only the best strategies and techniques in practice, but also the makeup and motivations of the people practicing them. Naturally, there are no silver bullets. What we are all talking about today takes time to implement and evolve. The fact that you are here dedicating your valuable time to learning, discussing, and pushing the field of sports psychology forward, well, that bodes very well for the future of what is still, relatively speaking, a very young profession. I can't thank you enough for your participation. I look forward to staying in touch. As one NBA legend closes all his emails with, be well!

sports psychology

mental health

athletes

diagnosis and treatment

diverse team of practitioners