This article offers our perspective on beginning sport psychology training. While core elements are often similar across professionals, each practice has its own unique style. We’ll walk you through what you can expect from us if you choose to start your journey here.
Beginning of sport psychology training
Unless your organization is well staffed and offers sport psychology, you most likely have to find one on your own. Maybe this happens through word-of-mouth or through online searchers.
In either case, you would then contact your preferred professional to set up a meeting.
Once you have made the decision to begin your sport psychology training with us, there are a few ways to begin:
Direct booking: First, you can go ahead and book an appointment directly by yourself through our booking system. This way you choose the date and time that fits best for you, and we will send you confirmation and further information.
Initial contact: Second, if you would like to talk with us before making an appointment, you can either call or message us (we have different options available).
This way, we can first talk a little bit about what you are looking for and we can then either book the appointment for you or you can do it yourself (or you can decide not to book one).
You will receive confirmation right after the booking and later, we will send you the meeting details via email.
Meeting format and setup
Our meetings are conducted remotely through video calls. No account is necessary; you simply join via the link we send.
We primarily use video, but you can opt for audio-only or request a phone call if preferred. For phone consultations using external apps (e.g., WhatsApp), please note that while secure, these may not meet the highest data privacy standards.
On the day of the meeting, we both will join via the link provided. If you’re running late, the meeting will still conclude at the scheduled time, but if we’re delayed, we’ll ensure the meeting runs at its full duration.
The first meeting
In our first meeting, we focus on:
Building trust:
Establishing a comfortable and open relationship is essential for effective collaboration.
In the first meeting, our goal is to begin building this trusting relationship and to get an initial understanding of you and your situation.
Understanding your goals:
Therefore, at the first meeting we are really interested to hear what you have to tell. At the end, we want to have a joint understanding of the reasons and goals you have for sport psychology. We will guide this process with some questions if needed.
Explaining our approach:
We will give you insight into our methods and initial thoughts on how we can address your goals.
The first meeting is for both of us to decide whether we are willing and able to begin to work together. This meeting will serve as the foundation, guiding our subsequent meetings.
The structure of the meetings
Each session follows a consistent structure that combines reflection, discussion, and planning:
First, we recap what has happened since the last meeting and if needed, adjust our approach.
The bulk of the meeting is then used to work around the day's topic, which depends on your individual plan. This is usually a discussion, where we work through your thoughts and feelings, aiming to progress towards more desirable outcomes.
At the end, we use a few minutes to recap and reflect on the day and agree on the next steps, which can include training on your own and the timing of the next meetings.
The content of these meetings is decided by you. We, of course, give our professional opinion based on what you tell us, but we do not pressure you to talk about anything you do not want to.
We can focus strictly on performance development, or we can address events in your life that you might want to talk about. These events can be sport-specific or more general events in your life. You choose.
However, success depends on an open mind, mutual agreement, and collaboration.
Sport psychology training
The meetings facilitate your training and development but oftentimes they are not enough as we need to practice more than that and then use the skills we learn in real life. Thus, a lot of your sport psychology training will be done outside the meetings.
Depending on your goals and our plan, this work can be doing exercises designed to increase your skills or it can be more reflective, aiming to improve your responses to certain situations and the way you look at them. So, this work can be specific, or it can be more abstract. But we make the plan together, making sure you know what to do.
We usually focus on one or two goals at once, so not to overwhelm you as sport psychology training is usually supportive work for your main training. It can also be more difficult at the beginning as it is quite different from what you might be used to.
There is currently no set amount of training recommended but it is decided more on an individual level. Factors like experience, motivation, and needs determine the frequency and intensity of training.
The training need for different techniques and skills differs as well due to their nature.
For example, concentration exercises can be done more continuously but goal setting is done once and then it is only monitored.
Similarly, exercises for thought and emotional regulation can be focused on real life scenarios after the initial work with sport psychology professional as these are more difficult to simulate on your own.
When does sport psychology training end?
The goal of all sport psychology work should be self-regulation, meaning we teach our clients just enough that they can train on their own and they can respond to events the way they want to and that is desirable for well-being and performance.
We want to avoid creating situations where the client becomes too dependent on the professional to respond or deal with the events in a desirable way.
Distinction to this can be high-performance settings, where continuous training is aimed to achieve higher and higher level of performance. In these settings, having a professional design and guide the training is beneficial as it is beneficial to have the availability of continuous support as high-performance often co-exists with high-pressure.
But this kind of intensive work is often out of reach for individuals. For individual clients, the end can become once you have reached a certain proficiency in your training, where you can confidently plan and use different techniques and exercises to improve your performance from a psychological perspective. Or it can end once you have learned the skills in the area you wanted, such as you have improved your emotional regulation or self-confidence and are confident in maintaining those skills in real life scenarios. Here, you choose as well (with our guidance).
Ending doesn’t have to be final, either. As life changes, you may want to revisit or expand on your training. You can always reach out for further guidance or new goals.
All of this is fine. The number of meetings, training, and time devoted to sport psychology is up to you and that most likely will change as your life changes.
That was an overview of our approach to sport psychology training, but you have to join us to find out how it will look like with you.