Psychosocial Health and Well-being in High-Level Athletes

183 Pages·2019·2.322 MB·English

by  Nick Galli

PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH AND
WELL-BEING IN HIGH-LEVEL
ATHLETES
The psychological health of competitive athletes is of paramount importance to
performance, retention, and well-being in sport, and national governing bodies
are increasingly concerned with its promotion. Psychosocial Health and Well-Being
in High-Level Athletes offers students, researchers, and practicing sport psycholo-
gists an accessible and rigorous grounding in the manifestations of psychosocial
health in athletes, the threats athletes face to their psychosocial health, and the
interventions which can be designed to enhance it.
Seeking to guide future research and expand professional understanding of
psychosocial issues in sport, the book is based on a model of cognitive, emotional,
social, and spiritual health. It clearly defines these dimensions in a sporting con-
text before discussing pertinent threats—such as career transitions, injuries, and
abuse—and interventions, including adversarial growth, life-skill interventions,
prevention and organization policy, and mindfulness-based interventions.
Providing an innovative and integrated perspective on psychosocial health
and well-being in competitive sport, this book is essential reading for upper-level
students taking any clinical sport psychology modules, and for sport psycholo-
gists, coaches, and administrators working with competitive athletes.
Nick Galli, Ph.D., CMPC® is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health,
Kinesiology, and Recreation at the University of Utah, USA. Dr. Galli has authored
or co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters related to
psychosocial health in high-level athletes. He was recognized as a distinguished
early career scholar by both the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and the
American Psychological Association’s Society for Sport, Exercise, and Performance
Psychology. As a practitioner, Galli serves as the mental performance coach for U.S.
speed skating.

PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH
AND WELL-BEING IN
HIGH-LEVEL ATHLETES
Nick Galli
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Nick Galli
The right of Nick Galli to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Galli, Nick, 1979- author.
Title: Psychosocial health and well-being in high-level athletes/Nick Galli.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018059973 | ISBN 9780815381259 (hardack) |
ISBN 9780815381266 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781351210942 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Athletes–Psychology. | Athletes–Mental health. |
Sports–Psychological aspects. | Sports–Physiological aspects.
Classification: LCC GV706.4 .G337 2019 | DDC 796.01/9–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059973
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8125-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8126-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-21094-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
For Julie, Jay, and Bella.

CONTENTS
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgments x
PART I
Foundations of psychosocial health 1
1 The relevance of psychosocial health for high-level athletes 3
2 Cognitive and emotional health 13
3 Social and spiritual health 31
PART II
Threats to psychosocial health 45
4 Organizational stress 47
5 Performance pressure 59
6 Abuse 72
7 Injury 85
8 Transitions 101
viii Contents
PART III
Interventions and positive outcomes 113
9 Prevention 115
10 Organizational practices and policy 129
11 Treatment 138
12 Resilience and adversarial growth 149
Index 163
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1 A conceptual model for understanding psychosocial health in
high-level athletes 5
1.2 An integrated model of global well-being and
context-specific well-being related to sport 8
10.1 A model for comprehensive prevention practices in
high-level sport 131
Tables
1.1 Characteristics of hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of
well-being for athletes 7
2.1 Summary of selected prevalence studies for emotional health
issues in high-level athletes 21