chapter is to provide some answers to these and other relevant questions, thereby
introducing you to sport and exercise psychology both as a scientific discipline and as a
profession. Please note, however, that the emphasis in this book is primarily on the sport
rather than the exercise components of this field (although the latter is considered in
Chapters 8 and 9).
The present chapter is organised as follows. To begin with, I shall explore such topics
as the mental dimension of sport, mental toughness in athletes and the question of what
determines the mental demands of athletic activities. Then, I shall provide a brief sketch
of the nature and history of, and research methods used in, the discipline of sport
psychology. The third part of the chapter will focus on professional aspects of this field.
Included here will be a discussion of four key questions: What type of work do sport
psychologists actually do? What is the best way to deliver sport psychology services to
athletes and coaches? How can one qualify professionally as a sport psychologist? Where
can one learn more about this field? In the fourth section, I shall provide a brief
evaluation of the current status of sport and exercise psychology. This section will
consider not only the scientific standing of this discipline but also people’s views of it.
Finally, I shall suggest an idea for a possible research project on the mental side of sport.
At the outset, however, some words of caution are necessary. From the initial
paragraphs, you may have assumed that sport and exercise psychology has a single
objective (namely, performance enhancement), a coherent identity (i.e., as a sub-
discipline of psychology), clearly agreed academic pathways to professional
qualifications, and an established role within the sporting community. Unfortunately,
each of these four assumptions is questionable. First, as we indicated earlier, performance
enhancement in athletes is not the only goal of sport and exercise psychology. To
illustrate, over the past decade this discipline has been concerned increasingly with the
promotion of health and exercise among people of all ages—whether they are athletic or
not (see Chapter 8). Also, sport and exercise psychologists have begun to teach
interpersonal skills (such as team building and effective decision making) in an effort to
cultivate personal excellence in non-athletic settings (P.S.Miller and Kerr, 2002). Second,
the assumption that sport and exercise psychology is an applied field within the discipline
of psychology is only partly true—simply because not all sport psychologists are
professional psychologists. Thus although some psychologists belong to Division 47
(sport and exercise psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA)
and/or to the sport and exercise psychology section of the British Psychological Society
(EPS), others have an academic background in sport science and are members of such
interdisciplinary organisations as the North American Society for Psychology of Sport
and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) and/or the British Association of Sport and Exercise
Sciences (BASES) (see summary of these organisations in Box 1.3). Third, in view of
this “twin-track” identity of sport psychologists, there are two ways of qualifying
professionally in this field. On the one hand, one can become a sport psychologist
through specialist post-graduate training in psychology. Alternatively, one could pursue
sport psychology through post-graduate training in sport science (Cockerill, 2002). I shall
return to this issue later in the chapter. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it is
important to point out that sport psychology has not always been welcomed or
appreciated by athletes and scholars. In this regard, several examples spring to mind.
First, performers such as the tennis player Jelena Dokic have expressed scepticism about
Introducing sport and exercise psychology: discipline and profession 5