The Football Association (FA) launched its strategy “Psychology for Football” at the Pride Park Stadium, Derby, on 7 November 2002. The meeting was a call to football professionals to endorse the use of sports psychologists.
Psychologists have received a cautious reception from sports professionals (Reference Martin, Wrisberg and BeitelMartin et al, 1997). Countries like Australia and the USA have been using psychologists in sports for decades. In the UK, developments have been slower, with important changes, such as the accreditation of the British Association of Sports and Exercise Sciences, happening in the late 80s.
The involvement of psychiatrists in sports has been more anonymous, as psychiatry not only carries a stigma but is also the antithesis of Mens sana in corpore sano (Reference CarranzaCarranza, 1999). Society perpetuates the problem by seeing sportsmen as highly-skilled entities, rather than primarily as human beings with strengths and weaknesses. Because of this, sports professionals in need of psychiatric help usually approach services as a last resort, during the final stages of their problem.
The FA strategy should be made extensive to other sports and, ideally, implemented at all levels. It would also be desirable to consider the inclusion in the strategy of professionals such as psychiatrists, who could play not only a therapeutic (Reference BegelBegel, 1992) but, equally important, a preventative role. Psychiatry can also complement psychology providing clinical input, or working together in a wider strategy towards changing behaviour in the public, and attitudes related to sport in society in general.
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