Tag Archive for 'Vonn'

Lindsey Vonn and the depression of the stars

The last athlete that we have come to know that she suffered from depression is the champion of skiing LindseyVonn (see interview on http://www.people.com/people/article/0,, 20,655,760.00. Html) after Buffon, Thorpe and many others. We are a long way from the 80s when psychologists wrote that sports champions show complex and well balanced personality . It was not true! For a long time it was thought that successful people  and not just athletes but also coaches, great leaders, managers, the winners compared to losers showed common personality traits  and therefore their identification in young people, it would be allowed to select potential champions from the others. No research has ever been able to prove. On the other hand, just think at the stars we all know to understand the great differences in personality: Tomba and Thoeni, Maradona and Platini, Rivera and Meroni, Messi and Balotelli, to name just a few. It happens to be successful and depressed, even being constantly under the eye of the public rather than the duty/want to keep winning create additional psychological pressures, increasing the conflict between that part of herself that is suffering from the pain of living and the other one who needs to do the best.