I'm doing a high school term paper on sports psychology and am interested in knowing if there are common misconceptions about the field that I might argue in my paper?

-- James Gregg (JamesDG122@aol.com), January 25, 1998

Answers

The most obvious misconception is that Sport Psychologists are "motivators" who psych up athletes when the majority of arousal problems in sport are due to over arousal, not under arousal. Also you have to remember that a sport psychologist is first and foremost a psychologist. They need to take a wholistic approach when working with athletes and it is not a job that simply looks at performance enhancement of an individual within his/her choosen sport. You need to be helping the person from as many different avenues as possible if you want to improve them as a person and ultimately their sports performance. This may include their relationships with significant others, school/college/work, career paths, health issues, social issues etc. Thus a misconception is that sport psychology consultants focus almost exclusively on enhancing athletic performance from a narrow perspective.

-- Brad Decent (nise_brad@yahoo.com), June 25, 1999.

I was intrigued by your question. Could you send me any responses that you have received? I would be interested to know what the typical day of a sports psychologist entails. Thanks!

-- chris (pga@usa.com), March 13, 2000.

I was also intrigued by the day of a Sports Psychologist! I am doing a report on the subject- could I also get that information? It would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a bunch!

BHL - gpbmsl@navix.net

-- Brett Howard Lauritsen (gpbmsl@navix.net), March 26, 2000.