Elite sport can be an unforgiving and harsh environment. This book explores psychological predictors of wellbeing and performance excellence in elite level athletes, and presents an innovative approach for optimizing mental wellbeing and sporting performance. Jointly developed by performance psychologists, clinical psychologists and sport scientists the Flexible Mind approach draws on contemporary psychological theory and research to help athletes build ‘psychological flexibility’ - the ability to experience challenging thoughts and emotions and still be true to one’s values. A range of case studies relating to different sports are used to demonstrate how three core components - Being Present, Being Open and Doing What Matters - can improve athletes’ performance and wellbeing. This book will be a game-changing resource for sports psychologists, mental health practitioners, coaches and support staff who are committed to helping athletes to excel and stay well.

Mental health within elite sport has traditionally been ignored, but recent research has shown that competitive sport can at times seriously undermine mental health and that athletes are exposed to specific stressors that hinder their mental health optimisation. Mental Health and Well-being Interventions in Sport provides an indispensable guide for researchers and practitioners wanting to understand and implement sport-based intervention processes. This important book adopts an evidenced based approach, discussing the context of the intervention, its design and implementation, and its evaluation and legacy. With cases on depression, eating disorders, and athletic burnout, the book is designed to provide practitioners, policy makers and researchers with a cutting-edge overview of the key issues involved in this burgeoning area, while also including cases on how sport itself has been used as a method to improve mental health. Written for newcomers and established practitioners alike, the text is an essential read for researchers and practitioners in better understanding the sport setting-based intervention processes through presenting current research, theory and practice, applicable in a variety of sports settings and contexts.

Elite sport can be an unforgiving and harsh environment. This book explores psychological predictors of wellbeing and performance excellence in elite level athletes, and presents an innovative approach for optimizing mental wellbeing and sporting performance. Jointly developed by performance psychologists, clinical psychologists and sport scientists the Flexible Mind approach draws on contemporary psychological theory and research to help athletes build 'psychological flexibility' - the ability to experience challenging thoughts and emotions and still be true to one's values. A range of case-studies relating to different sports are used to demonstrate how three core components - Being Present, Being Open and Doing What Matters - can improve athletes' performance and wellbeing. This book will be a game-changing resource for sports psychologists, mental health practitioners, coaches and support staff who are committed to helping athletes to excel and stay well. Ross G. White is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool, UK. He undertakes consultancy work in elite sport environments including providing mental health support to a Premier League Football Club academy and a Pro-14 Rugby Team. Lewis Charnock is a BASES accredited sport scientist (psychology) and is a Performance Psychologist at Everton Football Club Academy, UK. He has substantial experience working in youth and elite sport settings. Stephen Leckey is Lecturer in Sports Coaching at Ayrshire College, UK, having previously completed a PhD assessing mental toughness in Rugby Union. He is also Director of a sports performance consultancy, Athlete Focused. Victoria Penpraze is Senior Lecturer in Physiology and Sport Science at the University of Glasgow, UK. In a consultancy role she has more than 15 years' experience providing sports science support and research within elite rugby, football and golf. Andrew Bethell is a clinical psychologist. Andrew trained at the University of Liverpool, UK and currently provides mental health support to individual athletes, teams and staff groups across several high performance sport environments in the United Kingdom. .

Mental Health in Elite Sport: Applied Perspectives from Across the Globe provides a focused, exhaustive overview of up-to-date mental health research, models, and approaches in elite sport to provide researchers, practitioners, coaches, and students with contemporary knowledge and strategies to address mental health in elite sport across a variety of contexts. Mental Health in Elite Sport is divided into two main parts. The first part focuses globally on mental health service provision structures and cases specific to different world regions and countries. The second part focuses on specific mental health interventions across countries but also illustrates specific case studies and interventions as influenced by the local context and culture. This tour around the world offers readers an understanding of the massive global differences in mental health service provision within different situations and organizations. This is the first book of its kind in which highly experienced scholars and practitioners openly share their programs, methods, reflections, and failures on working with mental health in different contexts. By using a global, multi-contextual analysis to address mental health in elite sport, this book is an essential text for practitioners such as researchers, coaches, athletes, as well as instructors and students across the sport science and mental health fields.

This pioneering book in elite athlete wellbeing brings together the narratives of athletes and wellbeing practitioners in high-performance sport with cutting-edge theorizing from world-leading academics to explore pertinent mental wellbeing matters that present for elite athletes both during and after their careers. The journey of the elite athlete is considered from entering the high-performance system as a youth performer through to retirement, with contributions illuminating the ways in which mental wellbeing can be impacted – both negatively and positively – through common place experiences. Methods of creating holistic high-performance sports cultures along with common mental wellbeing influencers, such as parents, education, faith, injury and (de)selection are explored, as well as the ramifications of uncommon events on mental wellbeing, such as whistleblowing, legal disputes, psychological disorders and COVID-19. Drawing on this analysis, the book then proffers thought-provoking strategies for how the mental wellbeing of both athletes and staff can be understood, developed and supported, ultimately driving elite sport cultural transformation to put the person first and the athlete second. Each chapter presents the wellbeing experience from the vantage of the athlete or the wellbeing practitioner, followed by an academic unpacking of the situation. This makes the book a must read for students and researchers working in sport coaching, sport psychology, applied sport science or sport management, as well as practitioners interested in facilitating a duty of care for high performing athletes, and working in coaching, sport science support, athlete development programs, NGB policy and administration or welfare services.

The psychological health of competitive athletes is of paramount importance to performance, retention, and well-being in sport, and national governing bodies are increasingly concerned with its promotion. Psychosocial Health and Well-being in High-Level Athletes offers students, researchers, and practicing sport psychologists an accessible and rigorous grounding in the manifestations of psychosocial health in athletes, the threats athletes face to their psychosocial health, and the interventions which can be designed to enhance it. Seeking to guide future research and expand professional understanding of psychosocial issues in sport, the book is based on a model of cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual health. It clearly defines these dimensions in a sporting context before discussing pertinent threats—such as career transitions, injuries and abuse—and interventions, including adversarial growth, life-skill interventions, prevention and organization policy, and mindfulness-based interventions. Providing an innovative and integrated perspective on psychosocial health and well-being in competitive sport, this book is essential reading for upper-level students taking any clincial sport psychology modules, and for sport psychologists, coaches, and administrators working with competitive athletes.

It is a common assumption that sport is good for us and that participation in sport embodies public health benefits. With sport being increasingly used to deliver public health interventions worldwide, this book critically examines the rationale and evidence for sport as a public health policy tool. Featuring contributions from the United Kingdom, United States, Europe and Australia, it sheds new light on an emerging field of research which has significant implications for public health across the globe. Each chapter looks at the effectiveness of sport interventions across the lifespan for biological, psychological and social benefits, including those that utilise a settings-based approach to health promotion such as schools and professional sport clubs. Drawing on cutting-edge research which examines policy and practice at community and elite levels, this book addresses key topics such as education, engaging children and young adults, mental health, sport sponsorship and volunteering. Sport and Health: Exploring the Current State of Play is important reading for all students, scholars and policy makers with an interest in the sociology of sport, physical activity and public health.