Sport Psychology in Australia

Let’s read this in-depth and lengthy interview by Robert Nideffer with Jeff Bond, Director of the Department of Psychology at the Australian Institute of Sport, conducted 20 years ago after the Sydney Olympics.

Nideffer: What is the role of the sport psychology service provided by the Australian Institute of Sport Psychology (AIS) and when did it begin?

Bond: The Department of Psychology at AIS emerged in early 1982 as part of a Multidisciplinary Centre for Sport Science and Sports Medicine. AIS began in Canberra in 1981 as the Australian government’s response to the poor results at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Until that time, sport was based on sports clubs, you had coaches and managers who were volunteers. From that day on, the government took on the responsibility of subsidizing sport and currently taxpayers provide sport with $135 million each year to promote sport at any level. AIS provides residential and even short term programs for elite athletes.

The Psychology Department currently employs 6 full-time sport psychologists. These are all graduates and licensed to practice psychology and must be members of the Australian Psychological Society’s College of Sport Psychologists. This means they have studied psychology, sport science and sport psychology for six years and must have a minimum of two years of supervision in sport psychology.

Nideffer: What sports psychology services are provided to athletes and coaches?

Bond: Psychologists provide consultations to individual athletes with appointments managed within the Sports Medicine and Science Center. Most athletes come independently, much less frequent are cases where it is the coach or another person still requesting intervention for a young person. The Dept. of Psychology also organizes many workshops for teams/groups. Usually psychologists are assigned to specific sports groups and work there for several years, participating in national and international competitions. This system results in a large number of informal meetings between psychologist, coach and athlete.

Five AIS psychologists were at the Sydney Olympics and the sports covered by this group were: rowing, swimming, track and field, archery, triathlon, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, shooting, boxing and gymnastics. Overall, however, there were 12 psychologists present at these last Olympics. The psychology program that AIS provides to athletes and coaches covers a wide range of services:

• Performance Enhancement Training – This is an educational approach to the development of psychological skills directly related to elite performance. Examples of training programs include: goal setting/motivation and professionalism, activation control training, attentional control training, imagery and visualizations, emotional control training, race preparation and debriefing, routines in competition, skills for traveling, cognitive control training, alcohol and recreational drug education, and so on.
• Personal Development Training – This program emphasizes the needs of athletes and coaches to enhance a number of life skills that can be applied outside of sports or after they have concluded their athletic careers. For example: leadership training, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, interviewing skills, and sponsor service.
• Lifestyle Management – This program helps to effectively deal with issues caused by an imbalance between the extreme goals of a sports career and broader lifestyle issues. For example: stress or time management, and counseling in the area of interpersonal relationships.
• Group/team dynamics – This program area focuses on the complexities of developing and maintaining an effective team. It covers issues such as: leadership and positions of responsibility, communications systems, meeting management, team culture, team rules, and behavior management.
• Critical Factor Interventions – Services are also provided that fall within the scope of clinical psychology, including: food and weight control behaviors, depression, childhood or adolescent trauma, and substance abuse. In all cases, when long-term treatment is contemplated, the youth is referred to specialized centers with whom they are in contact to continue therapy or rehabilitation.

Nideffer: Do you have a standard program for athletes at AIS?

Bond: In short, the answer is no. I am convinced that standardized programs can only be useful in particular situations, when direct contact is problematic or at the youth activity level. The focus here is on individualized programs for elite athletes, coaches and teams. In rowing, for example, the athletes are older than in women’s gymnastics. Therefore, to impose the same psychology program on both groups would impede understanding of the peculiarities of these disciplines and the ways coaches and athletes deal with them. Also the workshops that are held are always very specific and built on the needs that need to be met.

Nideffer: Do you use psychological tests at AIS? If so, for what reasons do you use them and how are they presented to athletes?

Bond: At AIS, the only test we use on a regular basis is the Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS). I introduced it in 1982 and chose it because it examines a vast number of attentional and interpersonal characteristics related to high-level performance. We use the TAIS in conjunction with the individual athlete interview, coaches’ reports, and observation of training/competitions by the psychologist. In this way, a psychological profile is developed that increases the athletes’ and coaches’ understanding of aspects that impact performance. I think TAIS is particularly useful in explaining the complexity of attention in operational, practical and easy to understand terms.

Other tests are used on an as-needed basis. For example, we have long used the POMS, using it in a very practical way to increase coaches’ and athletes’ awareness of performance-related emotional states and to formulate operational strategies for improving mood.

Nideffer: How is the sports psychology service you offer accepted?

Bond: It is gratifying to see how well accepted sport psychology is at AIS and in Australian sport more generally. I remember in 1982 when I started this it was looked upon with great suspicion by most athletes and coaches. Within the community psychology was little considered and a traditional sporting culture (which still exists today in some small areas) reigned that did not recognize or discuss “weaknesses”. Of course, there was very little history of sport psychology in Australia in 1982, but that quickly changed. The first involvement at AIS was with swimming and I was the first Australian psychologist to participate in the Olympics (Los Angeles, 1984). The team had many successes and, of course, many other teams took note of the kind of services that were provided. Thus in Seoul the psychologists became three, seven in Barcelona, nine in Atlanta and 12 in Sydney. These psychologists are accredited to specific Olympic teams so that they can find a place, even a physical place, in the Olympics. Beginning in 1988, some psychologists have also been accredited to the Winter Olympic Games.

The acceptance of psychologists has also been fostered by speeches made by the same psychologists to the collegiate teams to explain their work and lectures given in training / refresher courses for coaches. The publication of scientific and popular articles has served to further raise the profile of sport psychology.

Psychologists are also active in high-level professional sports and this has increased acceptance of the discipline by the media and the sports world. The sports in which the presence of psychologists is most prevalent are tennis, golf, basketball, football, surfing and motorsports.

Nideffer: What services do coaches and athletes value most?

Bond: This is a difficult question to answer because the popularity of a program is dependent on the stage of preparation for competition. For example, in the early stages of training, athletes and coaches are more interested in focusing on personal development, managing lifestyle issues, and training basic mental skills. As we approach competition, personal development and lifestyle become less important and in their place more competition-specific elements become relevant. While traveling, I found myself more involved in activities to reinforce competition plans (often through visualization), review psychological skills necessary for competition, increase confidence, and manage group dynamics.

I found team culture and the ability of coaches to work cohesively with each other and manage the team effectively to be very important aspects. Problems can arise in training or competition, but it is clear to me that the additional stress associated with major competitions often brings up issues that should have been resolved at the beginning of preparation, so the presence of the psychologist is absolutely necessary. I have seen that when the psychologist travels with the team many issues can be addressed immediately. Furthermore, we will only be considered full members of the coaching and support staff if we can reinforce performance enhancement strategies and contribute to the overall performance of the team.

Finally, when something negative happens, the psychologist is able to make an effective contribution. Coaches always remember critical incidents, even after years they can remember what happened and how they solved the problem. In my opinion, this is because these incidents could have affected the individuals and the team very negatively. The real test of the effectiveness of the intervention of the psychologist, but also of the coach, is certainly not when everything is going well but instead after a mistake or in a critical period.

Nideffer: Do athletes value and/or perceive a need for sports psychology services?

Bond: In general, I think they do. There are, however, a number of people who do not think that way. Sometimes it depends on previous experience with sports psychology. I have noticed that athletes who have worked with sports psychologists who are too academically oriented are often struck by the distance between theory and practice. Athletes and coaches are very practical people and seek practical solutions and strategies. Sometimes the attitude of the athlete is significantly influenced by the attitude of the coach In my job I am constantly working on making sure that the coach is on my side. I work very hard to find the right opportunities (“teaching moments” if you will) to reinforce in coaches the idea that the psychological demands of performance situations interact with mental skills.

At AIS we conducted, with our stakeholders, a lot of research in an attempt to find out what they thought about our effectiveness, timing, and accountability. This was done in the various departments at AIS. The results showed a strong positivity towards AIS and an average acceptance score of 80% for psychology.

A positive influence of sport psychology concerns the presence, in interviews given by athletes and coaches, of references regarding the importance of mental aspects in high-level performance. For example, our best marathoner often calls the marathon a mental race. A few years ago Australia appreciated the performance of one of its top tennis players during Wimbledon. At that time it was recognized that the psychology program could make a significant difference. This player possessed a high level of fitness, speed and explosive power. Like all tennis players, he had developed his technical skills through years of training and competition. The key to exploiting the advantage given to him by his physical and technical skills lay in careful preparation to manage the psychological issues associated with this high performance profile.

Of course, we must also recognize that psychological training may not be a significant factor for some coaches and athletes. Sport psychology does not have a solution for everything. In many cases, however, psychological factors are the final hurdle to overcome to achieve success.

Nideffer: You have been the director of sport psychologists at AIS since 1982, what evidence have you gathered to say that the services you provide to athletes make a difference?

Bond: Among the indicators that provide objective support are, in general terms, the results of research conducted by AIS that have shown on several occasions that increased findings in sports medicine and sports science are associated with a parallel improvement in the performance of our athletes. In addition, the TAIS data that we have collected over the years shows that we can make a difference in relation to attentional and interpersonal characteristics. And I am convinced that our contribution is significant in improving stress management during competition.

I believe that coaches and athletes are very competent clients. In this sense the acceptance that they show towards sport psychology can be considered as a further good indicator of the validity of the services we offer. There is an economic cost in having a psychologist on the team and in having him participate in international tours. Moreover, if the coaches thought that the psychologist would interfere with the training program or would be useless, they would not tolerate his presence.

Nideffer: What effect will the advancement of technology in the next five years have on the work of psychologists?

Bond: I have to admit that I am a traditionalist and believe that the face-to-face relationship between the psychologist and the coach/athlete is essential. I also believe that psychology, as well as sports psychology, would be poorer if it moved away from the personal contact that is a traditional part of our profession. I would not want sports psychology services to be offered through correspondence. When I think back over the 25 years I have been working in this field, I believe that the validity of my intervention would be greatly compromised if I had done it sitting behind my desk and talking by phone or fax. I am aware that I would have lost awareness and would not have understood the critical aspects of performance if I had not been present for these situations.

This pattern based on personal and situational contact affects a certain percentage of our profession. It pertains, for example, to the way I operate with the national rowing team. At the time of national competitions I work with the AIS team and once the national team has been selected I work with them. I have organizational support and support from the rowing organization to be with the athletes and coaches as they enter the final phase of preparation for the Olympics. I don’t think I could have worked as well as I did if I was sitting behind my desk in Canberra. A few years ago I worked with a tennis player who won at Wimbledon. During the final stages of preparation I lived with him, his family and coach and was able to provide him with some effective strategies that I am convinced contributed to his success in tennis’ most important tournament. There is no way to do this over the phone, by fax or email.

There are sports psychologists who do not have similar organizational support or who work for athletes and teams from multiple sports. It is not possible for them to travel with the team or be present at training sessions. These psychologists have faced the dilemma of working in the absence of face-to-face and situational contact. The advent of the internet, digital video, and email technology now allows for contact regardless of location and could be a way for the psychologist to do their counseling work.

In addition, many athletes travel with their labtop or handheld computer and are in permanent contact with locations in other parts of the world. There is still some difficulty due to incompatibility of telecommunications systems, but in the next five years there may be significant advances in this area.

For developing athletes, the potential of the Internet is very promising for psychological training programs. These athletes may not be able to use their own sports psychologist, but they can have access to the internet. So by structuring a site in a hierarchical manner, it would be possible to access a very large amount of information, psychological profiles and communicate briefly with a sport psychologist.

Another area of technological development concerns biofeedback that can increase our work thanks to developments in instrumentation. In fact, these devices are always reliable and compact and with the possible developments in the ability to create a virtual reality, could spread rapidly among athletes to see three-dimensional images of their performance. This technology could replace the visualization exercises commonly practiced by many athletes. Our national rowing team already has access to a great deal of biomechanical information as they perform. They are able to modify their technical efficiency through shifts in body position, simply by directing their attention, breathing, muscle tension and center of gravity accordingly.

The future potential of sport psychology is very exciting. We will need to become capable of offering our services to a much greater number of athletes and coaches in different locations.The advent of the global athlete is a good thing and sport psychology will be at the forefront of tracking future developments in elite sport and actively using the latest technology to overcome the limitations due to the psychologist and coach/athlete not being physically present in the same location.