* Amy B. Athey, Psy.D. Clinical and S port Psychologist - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Amy B. Athey, Psy.D. Clinical and S port Psychologist amyatheypsyd@ gmail.com

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A little about me…

*Licensed Psychologist specializing in

clinical and sport psychology

*Certified Consultant, AAS

P

*US

OC Registry of S port Psychology Providers

*US

ATF S port Psychology S ervice committee member

*Over twelve years providing sport

psychology service to developmental, collegiate, and elite athletes

*Have worked at ACC, S

EC and now, P AC-12 institutions providing clinical and sport psychology services

*Recently tapped as one of five national

experts to provide expert oversight for the NCAA S ports Medicine Handbook

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*No conflicts of interest or financial

disclosures to report.

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*Role within team model of Sport Psychologist *Sport Psychology practice –

an evolution

*Influence of neuroscientific advances on

specific areas:

*Recovery *Arousal regulation *Confidence/ Readiness to compete *Focus/ Concentration

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Athlete

Team Physician S port Psychologist Nutritionist Athletic Trainer S trength/ Conditioning

Athletic Trainer S trength/ Conditioning Team Physician/ S pecialist S port Psychologist Nutrition

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Athlete

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"Football was the easy part," Bradshaw says. "I could concentrate for three hours, and the games were an

• escape. It was the

rest of my life that was going to hell.”

• Terry Bradshaw, NFL

Hall of Famer

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• Common areas of concern:

depression, anxiety, relationship issues, substance abuse, disordered eating, developmental/ transition issues

• Psychoeducation and advocacy
• Crisis Management
• Referral for medication evaluation

and management

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He has since become perhaps the brightest, most exciting player in baseball. But at age 17, all he felt was hurt and confusion. "It seemed like everyone was yelling at me in baseball, then I came home and everyone was yelling at me there," Griffey recalled. "I got

• depressed. I got angry. I didn't want to live."

So he took a step that too many take. He tried to take his life. In January 1988, Junior swallowed 277 aspirin, by his own count, and wound up in intensive care in Providence Hospital in Mount Airy, Ohio.

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*Imagery/ Simulation *Relaxation Training *Concentration Training *Positive Thought

Training/ Cognitive Restructuring

*Confidence Training *Emotion Regulation

Training

*Goal Setting *Leadership

Development

*Inj ury Management *Pre- and Post-

Competition Routines

*Team Building *Recovery Training

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*With more sophisticated understanding of the inner

workings of the brain, we can assist athletes to perform at new heights quicker.

*Measuring the functional state of the brain and CNS

provides information about the quality of communication in the brain, resistance to stress, and levels of activity/ rest.

*2nd Generation applied sport psychology is looking

to measure and provide training tools to understand peak performance and make it more consistent.

*CNS Training and Mastery

• 1. Assist athlete with Rest and Recovery
• 2. Assist athlete in the control of Emotions
• 3. Assist athlete to maintain Focus and

Attention

• 4. Assist athlete to be Mentally Tough (optimal

performance under Pressure)

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*Three critical factors needed:

1.

Practice

2.

Benchmarking current abilities

3.

Consistent feedback

*Without benchmarking and consistent feedback,

performance is often erratic.

*Consistent performance is more than “ thinking positively,”

but rather assisting athletes to control the cont rollables by not being told, but rather experiencing, seeing, and making real neurological changes in the brain in real-t ime.

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Example: Monitoring Sleep - Recovery

• Fosters accountability for the athlete and

provides objective information that can be used for education/reinforcement of habits

• Good habits

promote increased welfare, efficiency in the subsystems of the body, sync proper CNS responses, faster reaction times, better decision making

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*Emotional/ impulse control is the effective

recognition and management of destructive reactions.

*Impulse control allows us to stay physically calm,

positive and thoughtful.

*Creates mental space to generate constructive

emotion and reasonable thinking.

*Emotional S

elf-Control is the ability to master disruptive or destructive “ emotional outbursts” or automatic responses (amygdala hij acks) to threatening stimuli, situations, or imagined dangers.

*“ Amygdala Hij ack”

* Most primitive part of our brain and essentially controls

• ur “ fight or flight” response

* In other words, it causes a reactive response to a

challenge

* Characteristics:

* A trigger (some event or action that initiates the hij ack) * An instant reaction (loss of control) * A strong emotion * A strong regret after the action

* We have all had amygdala hij acks in our life where our

emotional side has reacted out of proportion to a certain

• event. One large component of impulse control is not

allowing amygdala hij acks to occur.

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*Player's Arousal

Impacting Decision Making

*On of the best

examples of an amygdala hij ack in sport was when Zadane head butted Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup Soccer Finals.

*People asked, “ what

was he thinking” ? ?

*The reality was, “ He

was NOT!!!”

*One Coach's

Arousal Impacting Decision Making

*Dangers of Poor Impulse Control for Coaches

*Others will withdraw –

perhaps avoid coach

*Frequent regret of the impact of word and actions *Miss critical opportunities for coaching *Excess fear, anger or sadness simply feels bad *Hostile people suffer increased heart disease *S

tuck in repetitive and destructive patterns

*"Top Ten"

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*19 year old European tennis player *Describes difficulty managing emotion

* Resulting in: * Point penalties * S

trained relationships with teammates

* Depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, feelings of guilt

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port counseling process included:

* Increasing awareness of triggers

* Playing someone he “ should” beat handedly

* Education on stress response and optimal zone of functioning

* He performed optimally in a more intense state. How could he

balance the need for arousal without becoming “ hij acked?

* Relaxation strategies…

both on and off court

* Collaboration and consultation with coaching staff.

A m om ent of stopping, turning inside, checking yourself out, noticing how you feel and

• bserving your thoughts w ithout

buying into them is a profoundly significant m om ent. It w ill give you the pow er to act from a resourceful, skillful place.

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*Middle-distance female runner *History of high performance (top 10%

in country)

*Presents with low mood, frustration related to

performance slump; also, describes experiencing self-doubt, low confidence

*Utilize more common cognitive-behavioral and

positive psychology interventions

*Replaced practice of imagery pre-race with use of

personal video clip (approx. 2 minutes) that she accessed on her ipod/ iphone.

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* F/ U, self-referential videos of

success and failure were used for mood provocation to investigate mood, neural, and endocrine activity among elite athletes

* Used fMRI and T/ C ratio * fMRI BOLD signals revealed

significantly greater activation in right premotor cortex and left sensorimotor cortices following successful self-reference than failed

* Percentage gains in T/ C among

success positively correlated with R premotor cortex BOLD activity

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uggests that affect with self- reference corresponds to an integrated neural and endocrine response to competitive challenge

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*Utilized relaxation strategies to help mitigate stress

response

*Affirm positive choices resulting in optimal performance

– “ How did you solve that problem? ”

*Review negative performance using “ mastery”

approach… what would you do different here?

*Reinforce positive self-reference statements *May include multiple review of video performance *Goal: diffuse negative self-reference and reinforce

positive self-reference (“ What do you bring to the next race? ” )

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*Brain’s ability to change can assist to create better

athletes.

*Example: early attention/ rapid decision making

*Isolate the specific neural network that underlies

certain skills

*Assess the current processing capabilities of the system

and then train system.

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*Cognitive Training

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*French Federation of Rugby

*Divided team –

• ne group received training, one did

not… blind to expert field coach ratings

*Main findings:

* Progression in performance rating of cognitively-trained

group

* Progression in both ability to anticipate opponents and to

execute performance based decisions with the Neurotracker training, as self-assessed by the players

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*The field of applied sport psychology continues to

evolve.

*While some delineate “ clinical versus performance”

issues, all impacts performance.

*Clinical intervention still necessary in providing full-

service to the whole athlete.

*Importance of being informed by the data to guide

consultation/ intervention

*And, yes, we still have much to learn!

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