What is Sport and Performance Psychology?
The pursuit of performance excellence can be exhilarating, rewarding, challenging, and heart breaking, sometimes all at once. Even at elite levels of achievement, being human means facing hurdles between ourselves and our greatest aspirations. When challenges arise, consultation with a well-qualified sport and performance psychologist can uncover strategies to clear the barriers to optimal experience.
Although there is variation based on individual background and training, sport psychologists generally offer the following types of services. Many of these services can also be applied to performing arts, business, and optimal functioning in everyday life.
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Managing psychological aspects of sports injury
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Navigating transition in athletics
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Reducing mental blocks (avoiding “choking”)
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Getting in the Zone (Achieving the Zone of Optimal Functioning)
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Promoting resilience, or so-called "mental toughness"
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Facilitating team cohesion/dynamics
A licensed sport psychologist is typically a doctoral-level trained clinician who has achieved formal state board qualifications as a licensed psychologist, with additional specialized training in sport and exercise science and/or other applicable areas of human performance. When you choose to work with a sport psychologist (distinguished from a mental skills coach, performance specialist, or other non-licensed individual), you are making a choice that helps to ensure a high and broad level of mental health training, and adherence to the legal, ethical, and privacy standards adopted by the clinician's state licensure board. Credentials matter!