ABSTRACT

Increasing numbers of professional teams and athletes look for assistance with the psychological factors of their performance, and there exists a growing body of professional sport psychologists ready to provide support. Despite this, it seems at times there remains a significant gap between the real needs of sport performers and what is delivered by traditional sport psychology.

The existential approach described by Mark Nesti offers a radical alternative to the cognitive and cognitive-behavioural approaches that have dominated sport psychology, and represents the first systematic attempt to apply existential psychological theory and phenomenological method to sport psychology.

This much-needed alternative framework for the discipline of applied sport psychology connects to many of the real and most significant challenges faced by sports performers during their careers and beyond.

Existential Psychology and Sport outlines an approach that can be used to add something of depth, substance and academic rigour to sport psychology in applied settings beyond the confines of MST and good listening skills.

part |69 pages

Existential psychology

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

Existential and humanistic psychology

chapter |18 pages

Existential-phenomenological psychology

Ideas and relevance to sport

chapter |13 pages

Phenomenology

Methodology and methods

chapter |19 pages

Anxiety and sport

An existential-phenomenological approach

part |57 pages

Application of existential sport psychology

chapter |18 pages

Existential counselling in sport psychology

Engaging in the encounter

chapter |9 pages

Professional team sport

Operating within an existential framework

chapter |10 pages

Ethical issues in existential practice

Authentic values and personal responsibility

chapter |18 pages

To be or not to be …

An existential sport psychologist?