The reason for this material (this was quite something) was my relatively recent dialogue with an athlete. Let's call him something simple, for instance "Pro". This doesn’t diminish his achievements, nor reveal his age, height, gender, or weight) and will maintain his confidentiality.
So, Pro practices an Olympic sport and reached out to me with a rather clear request: for the last few years (years, can you believe it!) he has been experiencing serious anxiety related to his performance. Consequently, he developed a lack of self-confidence, although until a certain age, according to Pro, there had been a normal, good progression in his results.
Well, the first question he asked was very simple and correct: do I work with such cases?
Of course, I do. This is basically the foundation upon which I wrote one of my papers in university. But then, as we began to figure out what caused this state, several rather important nuances emerged. It turned out that it didn’t just happen “on its own”, as sometimes we might think when we tell ourselves: “I don’t know, everything was fine before, then suddenly I started to worry a lot.” No, my dear, it doesn’t work that way.
It turns out that Pro had issues, mostly not psychological issues, but… disciplinary ones, meaning behavioral challenges. Then there was a long story when Pro received support from the right people, allowing him to get back into the fight for a very high title, but he was also given certain conditions that Pro failed to meet. Others met them, but not him. And he was left, as we often say, alone and “overboard”.
Then came the elbow-biting, self-examination, and self-blame. Added to this was pressure from coaches, accusations of all mortal sins (here, of course, I am on Pro's side as the coaches mentioned such terrible horrors that there were more than enough reasons for developing anxiety).
And you know what I love about people who have sports in their blood? They can after all of this… get up and come back. But returning to sports is one thing, while coming back to prove something to someone is quite another.
So, my young Pro returned to sports to prove himself. Prove what? And to whom?
Prove that he hasn’t changed. That he is still on top. That this unpleasant story changed nothing about him. And then, what?
Let’s pay attention to the significance of every loss or win for Pro?
Right, he lost — which means he didn’t prove it.
Lost again — then something’s wrong with me.
And gradually, a regular sports failure turns into a confirmation of one’s own incompetence. And here we come to quite an interesting point.
Initially, the request sounded like “anxiety and lack of self-confidence,” but after he answered a few interesting questions, it became clear that this request reveals a completely different picture, where the performance result gradually begins to fulfill a completely different function than it is meant to.
And this, in fact, is the first thought I want to convey to everyone who is planning to consult a sports psychologist.
You don’t necessarily have to come to us with a well-formulated request.
It’s no secret, well, for those who have worked with psychologists or have friends who have worked with psychologists, this is one of our main tasks — to help you formulate that request.
You can just come and say: “I’m constantly anxious before competitions,” “I’m afraid of losing,” “I do well in training, but not in competitions” or simply, “I don’t understand what is happening to me.” That’s quite enough to start a conversation. The thing is, often after the first conversation it may become clear that the problem lies a bit elsewhere than where you initially saw it. And that’s perfectly okay.
How to choose a sports psychologist?
Here, by the way, is also a separate topic. Sometimes I think that athletes choose a psychologist much like they choose a coach: they look at the number of accolades, certificates, well-known clients, sports experience, the name of the method, and then try to understand who among the specialists is “Citius, altius, fortius”.
Well, of course, all of this matters. I would also look at education, specialization, experience working specifically with athletes, and understanding of a particular sport.
Oh! And I would also look at age))
Still, older individuals can share not only knowledge of the science of sports psychology but also life wisdom, experience, or other interesting things.
Although, I suppose, there are just as wise individuals among younger specialists.
Let’s continue about the search for a specialist. It seems to me that if a person has never been in sports at all and confidently promises to fix or create you an Olympic champion’s psychology in just a few sessions, perhaps I would be a bit cautious.
But then again, paths are unpredictable…
There’s another thing that often turns out to be more important than all the beautiful accolades: *does this specific person suit you?
You know, I’ll be honest, and you probably have encountered this in other areas: you can end up with a very good specialist and realize after two meetings that you absolutely do not want to talk with him. And on the contrary, you could meet a person who seems complicated at first glance but with whom you can calmly discuss what you usually don’t talk to anyone about.
And this doesn’t mean that the psychologist should be pleasant to you in every aspect and agree with you all the time. Sometimes a good specialist will ask questions that, let’s say gently, may not please you very much. And sometimes he will carefully dismantle your habitual logic and break your life setups and stereotypes, asking questions like: “Why did we ever decide that it should be exactly this way?*” But the feeling that you can work with this person still carries great significance.
There should be a magnet, on both sides.
**Let’s return to our Pro. **
Responding to my questions, he produced a completely standard phrase that didn’t surprise me at all:
I already had experience working with a psychologist, quite prolonged, about a year, and now he doesn’t want to stretch the work out for that long again. Please give me some techniques that I can use to work on my own. A *normal desire? A normal desire, I understand. Especially for an athlete. I’ll explain why: an athlete is used to addressing problems as they arise. If there’s a lack of physical conditioning — we work on physical fitness. If there’s a technical error — we figure out where the difficulty is. If there’s a recovery issue — we change the regime. If there’s anxiety — let’s find a technique that will eliminate it.
Yes, there are indeed many techniques. A lot. One might even say, for every taste and color. Only there’s one small nuance: the technique is not always a solution to the problem the person is trying to solve with it.
If an athlete is anxious before the start because he has too high a level of arousal, he doesn’t know how to switch attention and starts running through his head all possible scenarios of losing just minutes before stepping onto the track, there may very well be enough of a rather short and specific work.
We figured out what’s going on, selected some tools, practiced them, tried them at competitions, corrected — and the person is moving forward. And this is perfectly normal format.
But if an athlete has lived with the belief that a loss says something about who he is and how much he is worth for several years, then I wouldn’t promise him: “Here, Vasya, I’ll provide you with techniques, and in a week you’ll forget about this problem.” I wouldn’t even start with techniques in such a state, as the problem arises from a completely different level.
And it’s precisely at this point that many get confused when they come to us, misunderstanding the difference between short-term work and a quick solution in therapy.
Short-term therapy** — is a completely normal thing. **
It can be very focused and still quite deep. Sometimes you really don’t need to spend years dissecting your childhood, your relationship with your mother, your first coach, and the history of mankind to help an athlete solve a specific sports task.
Yes, in my understanding, short-term therapy or work can last up to six months.
I’m sorry, I was taught this way; I can’t do it faster, and I don’t want to)
Because “fast” for me doesn’t mean “let’s quickly eliminate the symptom without particularly figuring out why and how it came about in the first place”. Because “fast” sometimes does not solve but adds another problem.
For example, an athlete experiences anxiety before competitions. We provide him with a technique with which he calms down perfectly well. It seems everything is great. But if internally the belief remains that “I must win, otherwise I will be a loser,” then another task appears: “I must stop feeling anxious, because if I am anxious, I will definitely lose.” And the person starts to become anxious about their own anxiety. Do you understand the algorithm? There you have an extremely effective technique.
One more important thing.
Working with a psychologist, if it is really meant to change something, requires participation from the person.
- A psychologist can help see options, figure out what’s happening, but he cannot make decisions and experience consequences instead of you.
- A psychologist can suggest looking at a situation from a different angle, can draw attention to things you hadn’t noticed before, can suggest an exercise or technique, can help analyze why you make certain decisions repeatedly and where they lead.
But I can’t, and more importantly, I don’t want to live your life for you. That’s honestly.
And with athletes, you know, what tends to ring out nearly every session:
“Should I leave my coach?” “Should I end my career?” “Should I change my team?”
But if a psychologist starts to make such decisions for the athlete, then in my opinion, it’s time to run from him. Why? Because you become dependent. Dependent on the psychologist, not just in terms of anxiety or emotions, but in terms of your own life and decisions.
“What should I do?” “What’s right?” “What do you think?”
And at some point, it turns out that you, who seemingly came to become more independent, now need the specialist even more. You must understand: your goal should be absolutely the opposite.
We should help you become more autonomous. Shouldn’t make decisions for you but should help you understand and be aware of yourself and the consequences of your own choices.
Ultimately, it’s you who steps onto the track, field, or pool, not us)
What else?
I generally feel that psychology somehow excessively enjoys the image of “it was bad — we worked — it got better”. And preferably forever.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: in reality, it’s not that pretty.
*Have you heard about \***relapses\\*** in psychological work? **
Don’t get scared; this happens. You’ve lived with your difficulties for 100500 years, and you think that after 8 sessions a reboot will replace your firmware? No, I can be a magician and can show that, but technically, overloading you can burn out some relays)
So what is this “relapse” and how does it look?
For example: a person may cope wonderfully with anxiety for several weeks, then may participate in some very important competition, lose one match — and suddenly find that all the old feelings he worked through are back again. And the first thought in such moments is a rather standard one: “Charlatans! Nothing helped!”
But that’s not entirely true. To be precise, it’s not true at all.
A relapse doesn’t mean that the work was useless. Sometimes it can show where we haven’t understood something well enough yet, or where the old way of reacting still dominates. And sometimes a relapse is linked not just to psychological work: the importance of the competition, workload, fatigue, lack of sleep, pressure from others — all of this also matters. And this is where the decision-making moment occurs. Not in the sense of “enduring and doing nothing,” but in the sense of reviewing what happened and asking oneself: what just happened?
And also, continuing the topic of relapses**. **
You see, our work together won’t always look like a constant movement forward. Sometimes it looks like two steps forward, one step back — and that’s okay. And sometimes after one step back, a person suddenly realizes that he’s no longer the same as he was a year ago because previously such a relapse would have meant the end of the world for him, whereas now he is capable of noticing it, understanding it, and returning to work.
And of course, about money)
For some reason, discussing money in psychological work is either often uncomfortable or only spoken about in one regard: expensive — means, the specialist is good.
That’s not entirely accurate. To be precise, I don’t think so.
The financial aspect can indeed serve as an additional stimulus to take the work seriously. When a person invests their own money, they sometimes pay more attention to the process, do not skip meetings without reason, adhere to what was agreed, and notice changes. This serves as a form of motivation. But money can also work in the opposite direction. You can pay a psychologist and unconsciously pass them the responsibility for your own life.
“I paid you, now resolve my issues” — yes, yes, this happens too. And here I really love to show both my boundaries and to demonstrate to those I work with their own.
A psychologist cannot do for you what you are not ready to do. Just like a coach cannot train instead of the athlete, and a doctor cannot follow the regime for the patient. Why would they?)
We can work together very well, pick out great tools, analyze underlying causes, understand much, but at some point, there will always come that part where the decision must come from the athlete.
And it’s not only about psychology. In our lives, we often occupy a rather convenient position — finding a person to whom we can hand over responsibility for our own life.
In sports, this is sometimes the coach, in this case, a psychologist, sometimes parents, sometimes the federation, sometimes even “circumstances around.” But do we understand that along with responsibility, we give away the ability to change something?
So what should one bring to a sports psychologist besides money?))
In my opinion, you don’t necessarily have to come with a perfectly formulated request. You can simply come and say: “I don’t understand what is happening with me.”
After that, questions, questions — and we’ll approach the true request.
Believe me, we’ve been trained quite well in this. At least I certainly have)
I actually think that one of the tasks of a sports psychologist is not only to give the athlete a tool but to help him understand what specific tool he needs right now and whether he even needs the technique in the form he imagined it.
And then, the work.
Sometimes just a few sessions are enough. Sometimes more extended work is needed. Sometimes the work goes intensely for several weeks, then the person continues working independently, and after a while, returns with a new question.
Sometimes a relapse occurs, and we have to figure things out again. And all of this is perfectly normal — this is just as much work as training. Therefore, honestly, I neither like nor want to promise “we’ll solve it in three sessions” or “you will need a year.” I prefer another approach: First to understand what we are dealing with, and then to decide how much and what kind of work is really necessary.
And perhaps that’s why I don’t like the word “quick” in my work.
You know, the desire to “hurry” sometimes means only one thing: we’re very keen for the unpleasant state to disappear quickly, and we are ready to seize upon the first promise that we are given. And at that moment, when you realize this, slow down.
Working, yes, working, with a psychologist — it’s not about finding a person who will finally tell you how to live properly. And not about finding someone who will quickly make it so that you’ll never feel anxious, scared, or hurt again. It’s about figuring out what’s happening with you, learning to notice your own reactions, seeing options that you hadn’t seen before, and ultimately starting to make your own decisions.
And then… the psychologist doesn’t step onto the track, field, or pool.
That’s how it is)