Monthly Archive for October, 2017

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Football Integrated for children with mental disabilities

Roma Cares Foundation and the Integrated Football Academy continue even this year the project “Football Together” directed to children of 6-13 years with intellectual disabilities. The project aims to use football to promote the sports, social and psychological development of young people. The program is meant to be a sport training adapted to the needs of each individual, with specific motor and psychosocial assessments (beginning, during and year-end) permitting anyone to learn if followed by competent professionals (football instructors, sports psychologists, speech therapist and doctors) with training sessions organized into units of 60 minutes twice a week from October to June.

For further information: segreteria@accademiacalciointegrato.org

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The psychological reasons of the negative momentum of the Italian football team

The reasons for the negative performances of the national football team are also psychological and it seems that this kind of explanation has not been taken into consideration by Ventura, national ct, while in this respect most significant players, primarily Buffon, Chiellini and Barzagli have expressed ideas quite clear. It all started from the statements following the defeat with Spain. Ventura said that the players were professionals who would have been able to react positively to 3-0 right away and that this result could not have had any negative impact on the confidence of the team. Opposed were the words of Buffon after the last match with Macedonia:

Then, the national team to get out of this negative phase needs: confidence, awareness of one’s own strength, know getting up after defeats, know help, have fun, be uninhibited and positive. But the team was set to these principles? And what was plan B (what you do in place when things are not going in the right way) before the matches with Spain and with Macedonia? How are players helped during the camps to empower this mindset suggested by Buffon and underlying any winning mentality? Certainly it is true that psychological skills are acquired over time rather than a weekend. Also, some players have no place in their club team and so they have no way to test themselves frequently, in matches that you must absolutely win. Nonetheless I would like to heard, at least once, the coach say that meet some psychological difficulties is part of the game and that just because the players are professionals, the team is  also working on the mental approach to the game and how to play with a winning mentality. Then may the best team win.

In Italy master in PS don’t help to find work

In Italia la questione della formazione in psicologia dello sport degli psicologi continua a essere un problema non risolto. Tralasciando quelli il cui solo scopo è di fare lavorare i formatori che v’insegnano, anche quelli meglio strutturati hanno notevoli limiti.

Vediamo quali sono a mio avviso:

  1. La quasi totalità propone una formazione centrata a insegnare competenze che dovranno servire per lavorare nell’ambito della prestazione di livello assoluto ed essenzialmente con gli atleti, ignorando la consulenza con gli allenatori o l’organizzazione sportiva. In tal modo molti aspetti del mondo sportivo di alto livello non vengono considerati e i giovani laureati avranno, di conseguenza, difficoltà a interagire con una parte fondamentale (gli allenatori, i dirigenti) dell’ambiente degli atleti.
  2. Due ambiti importanti di lavoro vengono tralasciati nella formazione in psicologia dello sport. Il primo riguarda i programmi di avviamento allo sport (6-12 anni) e l’età dell’adolescenza. Questo ambito, è tra l’altro uno di quelli più facilmente aperti agli psicologi ma in cui è necessario avere delle competenze specifiche mentre quelle riguardanti l’alto livello non sono spendibili se pensiamo all’infanzia e vanno comunque adeguate anche nelle diverse età dell’adolescenza. In queste fasce di età, inoltre, il rapporto con i genitori rappresenta un altro fattore con cui si deve interagire in modo costruttivo. Il secondo ambito importante riguarda, lo sport come diritto di cittadinanza e come fattore di benessere. Anche in questo settore gli psicologi non acquisiscono competenze, se non una generica convinzione che lo sport è un fattore essenziale per la vita di ognuno e della comunità.
  3. Un campo in cui gli psicologi non hanno competenze specifiche riguarda la metodologia dell’allenamento e l’insegnamento sportivo. Com’è possibile interagire con gli allenatori (molti dei quali oggi sono laureati in scienze motorie che hanno sostenuto diversi esami di psicologia) se non si conosce il loro mondo e se non si ha consapevolezza di come s’imparano i gesti sportivi, di cosa sia l’apprendimento motorio o di quale sia l’interazione fra preparazione fisica e psicologia?
  4. Un ulteriore aspetto limitativo dei master odierni è la mancanza di un tirocinio supervisionato per un tempo adeguato (almeno di quattro mesi) presso un’organizzazione sportiva. Ciò che è comune in qualsiasi altro tipo di master, è invece pressoché assente nei master in psicologia dello sport.
  5. Un ultimo aspetto limitante le proposte formative attuali, riguarda l’assenza di come lo psicologo dovrebbe proporsi nell’ambito territoriale e professionale in cui intende svolgere la sua attività. Il tema è quello del marketing di se stessi, essenziale, poiché bisogna sapere come proporsi, come costruire il proprio network professionale, come scrivere un progetto e negoziare un budget, come interagire con i dirigenti di un società sportiva che probabilmente hanno un’idea generica di quali servizi lo psicologo dello sport potrebbe offrire.
A mio avviso, la mancanza di questi ambiti formativi riduce notevolmente le opportunità di promozione e diffusione di questo ambito lavorativo, lasciando lo psicologo in una condizione di minorità rispetto alle altre professionalità che da tempo operano in modo consolidato nello sport.

The athletes’ main psychological mistakes

The athletes’ main psychological mistakes:

  1. Think that feel healthy is enough to do the best.
  2. Visualize the race without providing for the possible difficulties that could be happened and not provide a way to solve them.
  3. Be too much/little activated, driven by the desire to win or the fear of not succeeding.
  4. Be so much worried about the race and not focused on the present but on what might happen of negative.
  5. Not thinking the difficulties during the race as a normal part of the performance but as personal incompetence.

Who is accountable of the long term athlete development?

Confidence is a relevant topic for the psychologists and very often the coaches use it to point out the errors of their athletes are caused by a deficiency in this psychological dimension. Sometimes this explanation is used to hide the coaches’ mistakes but other highlights limits in psychological development.

On this topic we can say a lot. One such example comes from the interationist approach to the study of personality, it explains the behaviors are derived from the relationship between the personality, the situational challenges, the specific skills and expectations of the social environment.

Since the question is so complicated, no one among athletes, coaches and staff, sports organizations and parents can shirk their responsibilities, which determine the athlete long term development.

How many address the issue of poor performances with this vision? How many clubs are organized to meet this need, taking into account these variables?

Self-Efficacy in track & field

Creating Confidence: The Four Sources of Self-Efficacy

Matthew Buns, Assistant Cross Country and Track & Field Coach, Concordia University, St. Paul

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.” – Henry Ford

Rarely in competitive athletics is the importance of the mind doubted. Specialists in sport psychology are often asked some variation of the question “How do I make my athletes more confident?” There are many aspects of training and competing that may shake an athlete’s confidence, from the importance of the event, to fearing certain fellow competitors, to the challenge of the race course. Coaches often wish for their athletes to simply trust in their training, but it’s not always as simple as that. The purpose of this article is to provide a blueprint for coaches to teach mental readiness and demonstrate why it can be just as critical to performance as physical readiness. A coach does not need to be a sport psychologist in order to realize how performance improves with a mental edge in track and field. In order to be mentally ready to compete and put forth an optimal performance in track and field, athletes must be confident in themselves’ and have a high level of self-esteem. Above this, an athlete must possess something more specific: a high level of self-efficacy. Self- efficacy, in and of itself, has been shown to be a better predictor of performance than just outcome expectations (goal setting) before a performance and as good of a predictor as anxiety levels (Gernigon & Dolloye, 2003). It is one of the most important, situation specific, mental aspects that a track and field coach can instill within their athletes.