| Article Index |
|---|
| Mind over Matter |
| Tips for Injured Players |
| All Pages |
Page 1 of 2
Colm Ó Riagáin looks at the psychology of dealing with sports injuries. Whether it's a freak occurrence during a match or the result of constant play, injuries are something every player must deal with. There is increasing evidence that the mind matters. Any descriptions by sportspeople of the time their career was blighted by injury invariably include descriptions such as "bleak period", or "an immense test of physical and mental strength."
The psychological approach to sports injuries is not only revealed in the testaments of athletes of the emotional consequences of physical injuries but increasingly from the opinions and experiences of treatment specialists in the field. In addition, there is an emphasis on looking at the interaction of psychological factors, such as motivation, fatigue and stress, on the risk of injury. This makes sense when you consider that sports injuries result in significant public health demands and economic costs. This increased recognition and attention to the psychological approach to injuries in athletes has brought with it awareness that psychological skills and information have a role in a more holistic response to dealing with a player's injuries.
It wasn't always so - Bill Shankly believed that the best way to hasten the recovery of soccer players was to ignore them completely until they had recovered! Given the widespread testimony of players as to the importance of support from family, friends and colleagues on their long journey back, this old style approach was as ineffective as it was is insensitive.
A psychological approach to sports injuries can be useful in three main ways -
- Helping to minimise injuries where possible by identifying factors which increase the risk to players - wrong types of training, managing stress, dealing with fatigue etc.
- Advancing evidence-based psychological techniques which may be useful in injury rehabilitation programmes.
- Informing sporting associations and player welfare forums of good practice.
The focus here is on the reactions of players to injury and the psychological techniques which seem to help in recovery and rehabilitation.
Two useful psychological models, though limited, can help us understand players' reactions to injuries. On an emotional level, these reactions have been characterised as akin to the stages of grief a person goes through when confronted with a loss - namely shock, denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance.
An alternative view is that reactions to injury can be understood by looking at individual's personality and how they see the world, their life stresses and circumstances, the way they see the injury, their emotional response and these feeding into how they behave in any rehab programme/treatment.
These models can help us to look at why and when players react in a certain way and the differences between players in how they adapt. Players and treatment specialists need to be mindful of how a return to playing can best be achieved. Fear of the injury recurring is often a factor, as is the tendency to want to get back as quickly as possible, risking the loss of hard gains made.
