🇿🇦🧑‍⚕️ Dissecting Sports Psychology from a South African specialist's perspective

"It is essential for coaches to set that culture where people can talk about their mental health and challenges and be encouraged to build relationships with each other."

According to Very Well Mind, sports psychology is the study of how psychology influences sports, athletic performances, exercise and physical activity.

Technically, sports psychology intends to help athletes and coaches to improve performances and increase motivation.

Grahamstown-based Psychologist, Greg Wilmot admitted there isn't a category for sports psychology in South Africa as it is still a growing platform, although there is a great understanding of the field.

The L.A Dosage spoke to Wilmot who did his Masters of Science (Sport & Exercise Psychology) in the United Kingdom about his role in the field and how he came to working with athletes and coaches alike while dissecting on the topics he works on with his various clientele.

"I work as a counsellor who has a field of expertise in sport psychology, and that’s because I did my masters in the UK in sports psychology with my focus on anxiety and population. So you can’t claim to have the competence if you don’t have it," he told The L.A Dosage.

"So I work every day with mental health issues, most of my clientele are sports people that I work with, and it might be about their own mental health, stress management, mental skills strategies, basic or higher performance. Mostly I have worked with young people, adolescents, a few professional athletes from a range of different sports, but most of my bread and butter is as a psychotherapist in my practice."

As it is known in the world of sport that there are plentiful sporting codes and one wonders if the study of sports psychology applies to all of them and how does an expert in this regard approach psychotherapy. Wilmot believes one has to separate the person from the problem and there you can establish what is the root behind the issues said persons may be going through that is hindering their progress.

Sports fans/ The Guardian

Sports fans have often seen athletes 'fall from grace' and down the line, we discover that they were going through trials and tribulations that one couldn't even imagine but you then wonder, why didn't they ask for help when they could? We have seen too often how these athletes end up being rubbished by not only the media but fans as well.

According to Wilmot, "Yes, a person is a person and these are people with problems. The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem and so what I do is unpack what these issues are and help people draw out what the story behind this is. Whether it's high performance or mental health stuff. I don’t know if that answers your question, I hope so."

So now we have established that it is possible to help these professionals that we have grown to love and be fond of but how does an athlete distinguish between what you call having a bad day and something being significantly wrong?

Let us not forget that there are pressures from themselves, family, coaches and all those that work close to them. So often athletes will mask the pain because they want to either avoid being judged or actually having to face the problem; perhaps it is easier to go on pretending that there is nothing wrong and the facade will be masked as "it's one of those days" and they keep it moving.

"I think characterisation is always something to look at, you are going to have bad days, but it’s the duration and the intensity of that duration of those bad days. But also how you quantify it with what bad days are, you know like not scoring goals, or not performing that personal best (PB) you would like to get. It's different to quite serious anguish, anxiety or OCD, so it's really important to get a good qualitative look at what the issue is and how people define that," he further told The L.A Dosage.

"It’s very context-specific, an athlete or sportsperson is still within a community, within a family system, you know a coaching network, a team culture and how that all impacts on that person. So your previous question about my expertise as a therapist is to bring that weaknesses and strengths together, to get a formulation of what is going on and what these kind of stresses are and how to manage them.

One interesting aspect of therapy that the Grahamstown-based psychologist touched on is that of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which is a treatment that focuses on thoughts and feelings for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related conditions. "How it (problem) affects that person in their capacity with their own personality structure, then you can start tailoring something specific. There is a lot of overlap in the basic techniques such as CPT for anxiety that one would use for dealing with pre-match nerves. You can use those same feelings of emotions all combining together, but it’s just unique to every person," he added.

As previously mentioned earlier in the article, athletes tend to mask their personal problems due to ongoing pressure and it is a work in progress when establishing ways of helping these professionals break down their walls considering the fact that some hardly get personal with their fellow teammates or loved ones. So how can experts help athletes overcome this hurdle in order to be emotionally stable and handle their personal problems with ease and ultimately perform better in their respective sporting codes?

Wilmot has identified this particular pattern and of course, every expert in this field is different in the way they tackle therapy with their clients but in his years of experiences, he firmly believes that it is of utter importance for coaches and managers alike to set the tone and culture in their teams to help ease the challenges of mental health and coming out without the fear of judgement.

"Yeah, this is my opinion and something that I try and do is coaching coaches. I work a lot with coaches in sports in the school context as seen on my website because I work a lot here in Grahamstown with schools and watch a lot of sports. The reason why I say coaching coaches is because they are the people who set the motivational climate and it is very important that players buy into that. I was just having a conversation with people the other day that about how coaches, whether its football, NFL or rugby, coaches are a very important catalyst for setting that climate and that culture," as told to The L.A Dosage.

"So yes I think it is essential for coaches to set that culture where people can talk about their mental health and challenges and be encouraged to build relationships with each other. You cannot work with people on a football team if you don’t have conversations, that is very dependent on personalities and relationship styles and that sort of stuff.

"But there is very good research coming out again and again and again. But the impact the coaches will have on what they call the motivational climate whether it is hot or cold will affect the relationship between players."

In the same breath, we then escalated the interview to sport entities and trying to figure if they are doing enough to help look after the mental aspect of athletes considering the fact that they are expecting to be at their utmost best on game day. But, how do they do this when they are fighting personal battles that can often penetrate into their sport?

Wilmot said: "I can’t talk from stats or case studies and that sorts of stuff but I think that mental health in sports is still a big thing whether you in the Champions League or the lowest league. But I think we are severely unsourced in South Africa, even just in terms of basic mental health in the country, never mind in sports.

"I think the people understand it’s serious but there aren’t always systems or the channels to give people to follow, and I think we will hear that a lot from players going forward about what are the processes. Because we put a huge amount of pressure on these players, yes they getting wages, but when you got 50 000 people shouting and people are following your stats, that is a huge amount of work stress, especially where your career is on the line, but I don’t think we find ways to talk about it. In South Africa particularly, we really have a taboo relationship with mental health."

Furthermore in South Africa, we have the term "rainbow nation" which consist of diverse cultures, races, religion and so forth. Race, in particular, is a very touchy subject but how does mental health affect various races in terms of how they deal with the challenges considering that it is still very much taboo in this country.

As per Wilmot's sentiments: "I would not be able to make a cross-cultural difference in analysis, but I think that there are going to be human experiences and that those experiences are stressful circumstances. How mental distress is manifested is from so many layers, so some people do drugs, other people get depressed, other people get anxiety and it is manifested differently for everyone. Very far-fetched and maybe reaching but there is evidence that white South Africans have a more cognitive experience with depression and anxiety, whereas black South Africans have a more semantic experience of depression, people will say like “I have got body pains” but you peel away the layer as in the metaphor, and I think that is what we need to explore, how people express distress. Even mixing African spirituality with mental health, that is crucial stuff that needs to be taken into consideration because everyone will have a different social-cultural history with ways to express distress. I take cross-culture very serious in my practice.

As the interview progressed, Wilmot and I discussed the injuries of athletes and how some take lengthy periods of time to recover mentally particularly when they have been on the sidelines for months on end. However, that is not to put all athletes in the same basket as some have managed to bounce back physically and mentally and continue as per normal.

Being the expert that he is, there are instances where he would have to help athletes to overcome the mental barrier in order for them to reclaim their mental strength but also consider there could be a risk of the athletes relapsing, especially if they had reached a stage of depression and for some self-pity.

"Something that is very common is the fear of re-entry, because you’ve spent 100’s of hours, blood, sweat and tears to get to this level of performance. I’ve seen this a lot with schoolboys, school athletes where someone gets a knee injury or a back injury in hockey or whatever it may be, and their outfall is kind of 369. You know rugby, football becomes such an important thing in their life, and they have a social connection, they have self-esteem, they have talent. There is opportunity and excitement and that all feeds into their motivation. Then sometimes you can’t play something, and you go from a really high level of functioning and sublimation of emotions and energies as well as social confusion. So when people do come back it is sort of… I don’t want to call it a traumatic experience but a very emotionally distressing experience, because you don’t want the same thing to happen because it is already terrible," Wilmot highlighted.

Discount Football Kits

"You don’t want to keep sitting on the bench, or going to the physio, so if you coming back and you can get re-injured then you going to be out again which is back to square one, so a lot of people will experience anxiety with that. You going to overthink whether that was a good click or a bad click in your knee, you not going to want to tackle someone as hard, so the solution is really to build up and bring back that confidence.

"Going to a physio and doing strength tests helps for qualitative data as well, and you will gradually return to your form. It does require a leap of faith to some extent but I think a lot of social support really helps. It comes to the three things basically - autonomy, competence and relatedness, so relatedness is the social aspect, competence is about getting clearance that I am able to perform at this level or that I expect myself to be able to, and autonomy is being able to do it on your own, not relying on a physio or anyone boosted my confidence and tells me that I’m fine.

"Another mechanism is keeping a training diary or recovery diary, and when you look back and reflect you see your progress and how much you have done. So then you have a book of evidence of how much you have done.”

Last Chance U/Stadium Journey

If we are understanding our expert correctly, it is relatively possible for athletes to heal in every aspect of their life and continue to play in their respective sporting codes without the fear of falling back to the 'dark hole' if you like. "Yeah, and that often helps when having someone to talk to and to unpack that fears are really useful. It comes back to what I was saying earlier about motivational climate like the saying goes, misery likes good company. ‘Last Chance U’ is the perfect example of what I have just tried to explain. It is worth the watch."

Andre Agassi/ Getty Images

"Like Andre Agassi revealed in his memoir 'Open' that he would wake up in the morning and everything is painful including his back and neck which has led him to sleep on a hard floor because his body is so wrecked. I think once your motivation changes your career changes, it’s about the things that keep you motivated to stay in the game when growing up because of the pressure is a big issue. For instance, in PSL we have this 12 month season, and unfortunately and sometimes there are not enough breaks in between.

Rene Naylor/Women's Rugby/Getty Images

"People feel pressured because of this long period with all the physical demands, there is lots of evidence that as fatigue goes up, the risk of injuries goes up and Rene Naylor who currently is the Springboks' physio speaks very well about recognising rugby players who should only play so many minutes per season and once they reach a certain threshold it’s over their contact time and their risk of injuries almost doubles."

In closing, Greg Wilmot has urged coaches, fans and everyone involved in the sporting fraternity to be more vigilant when it comes to mental health as it is an ongoing battle. A little kindness and support go a long way.