Sport psychology use psychology knowledge in order to improve performance and the well-being of athletes. Of course this is interesting for athletes but sport psychology is not only for them. Athletes are working with other people and their life and performance are influenced by those persons. They are coaches and all the staff, parents, teammates etc.. Also, sport psychology is not just clinical psychology for persons who are working in sport. It is a psychology in its own right mixing clinical, social, cognitive and developmental psychology.
Sport psychology is well developed in anglo-saxon countries. The first research about it was during the XIX century but we consider Coleman Griffith as the pioneer of the sport psychology. At the beginning of the XX century he create the first sport psychology laboratory. In 1965, sport psychology is recognized as an independent discipline but it is only in 1988 that a psychologist work for the American Olympic team. Today, sport psychologist work for many teams in different sport like baseball or for athletes like Michael Phelps.
In France, the reality is very different. The sport psychology is seen like clinical psychology for athletes, we do not consider the social aspect of sport. We imagine that psychology is only interested for athletes who do not feel good, or have bad performances or to prepare them for a game. Furthermore, generally we do not hire psychologist for mental preparation but professional with a sport diploma. In fact, people are right, psychologist can help athletes in the need, but they are also useful to help coaches and athletes to improve their performance and well-being.
As a social psychology student, I’d like to share what a social sport psychologist can do. A social sport psychologist is going to work on the interactions between the individuals and the interactions between individuals and the environment. Basically, a social sport psychologist will have several missions. We can work on relationships between coaches and athletes or between teammates. The objective is to make better the relationships, to improve the communication. We can also work on the group dynamic, we are going to observe the role of each person and how each of them influence the other. Here we can talk about leadership for example. Moreover, we are interested by the influence of the environment on the athletes. The environment is comprised of sport staff (coaches, medical staff), parents and the public support. We try to understand how those persons operate on motivation, performance and well-being. We are also interested in the comprehension of individual mechanisms like self-esteem or self-efficacy.
So, sport psychology is very interesting and psychologist can make their contribution to sport. They can help athletes and club in many aspects. We are useful! But The development of sport psychology is very unequal through the world. In France, psychologists have to cope with a wrong opinion of them in general. So it is our duty to learn people what psychology and sport psychology really is. As psychologist, whatever is our speciality, we need to show people that we can intervene before the troubles and prevent them. We need to show that we are useful in many places and not only in front of disabled persons.
Mathilde Corbineau