The profession of sport psychologist in Italy is not as widespread as one would expect for many reasons linked to our cultural backwardness both in sport than in the academic world. Among these reasons, there is one that concerns the lack of knowledge by managers and coaches of where and to whom to direct their offers of counseling psychology of sport for their clubs.
Often the choice of the sport psychologist occurs through the direct or indirect personal knowledge. Everyone knows doctors, but no one would think to go to an orthopedic surgeon when needed instead of a cardiologist or viceversa. In many people’s minds is dominant the idea that to work in sports is enough to be psychologists and not sport psychologists.
The reaction of the psychologist who are offered this opportunity is immediately positive but shortly after he began the frantic search for a colleague who is sport psychologist to talk to and ask for advice on what to do. Result: the psychologist will present to the club a program that includes the implementation of skills that she does not have and will bring discredit on the sport psychologist profession.
How to reduce this problem? The answer: the sport psychologists should be able to document their work, describing:
- the request and the hypothesis
- the method used
- the results obtained
- the future implications for other activities
This approach would allow the sports psychologists to gain greater credibility with regard to the professional sports world, it would be a stimulus to research how to support their interventions and to share on a wider audience their activity.
We need to get out from logic “believe in me” and become carriers of a culture of data-driven work.
With this aim the Italian journal of sport psychology, Movimento has planned to publish a special issue devoted to best practices in sport psychology open also to the contributes coming from other countries.
Those interested can send an abstract to this email address by June 30. I am at your disposal for any further clarification.
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