Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

probably not mediated by stress-related mechanisms. In addition, the profusion of
variables included in cognitive appraisal models (see Figure 9.2) makes it difficult to test
causal relationships. In short, these models appear to be too all-embracing to serve as
heuristic devices for hypothesis testing.

Conclusions about theories of injury reaction

Until the 1990s, psychological understanding of the way in which athletes react to
injuries was based largely on intuition and clinical case studies (Udry and Andersen,
2002). Subsequently, this picture changed with the advent of two important theories in
this field—namely, the grief stages and the cognitive appraisal models. Having explained
these approaches separately in the previous sections, let us consider how they compare?
At first glance, there are certain similarities between these two models. For example,
both of them claim that athletes’ psychological reactions to injuries vary over time. On
closer inspection, however, these models differ from each other in at least three ways.
First, whereas grief stages models tend to neglect individual differences between athletes
in reactions to injury, cognitive appraisal approaches begin with the assumption that
athletes differ considerably in how they perceive and interpret their injuries. Second,
whereas grief stages approaches dwell primarily on emotional factors, appraisal models
claim that injuries affect athletes also at the cognitive and behavioural levels. Finally, the
two approaches differ with regard to postulated theoretical mechanisms. In particular,
whereas grief stages models appeal to the mediating influence of constructs such as
emotional loss, cognitive appraisal models propose that stress mediates athletes’ reactions
to injury. Unfortunately, as both loss and stress are rather nebulous constructs, little
explanatory value has been achieved using either of these theoretical models. Despite
these criticisms, the grief stages and cognitive appraisal models of injury reaction have
been helpful to sport science researchers. Thus Udry and Andersen (2002) concluded that
the former approach has been useful in illuminating not only “what” athletes experience
after injury but also “when” they do so. By contrast, the cognitive approach may offer
investigators some ideas about the reasons why athletes differ from each other in their
emotional reactions to injuries.
At this stage, having reviewed available theoretical approaches, we need to consider
an important practical question. Specifically, what psychological techniques are useful in
facilitating the rehabilitation of injured athletes? In accordance with the theme of this
book, we believe that the best techniques are those which combine theoretical rigour with
practical utility.

Rehabilitation of injured athletes: from psychological theory to

practice

The principal objective of any injury rehabilitation programme is to help the afflicted
athlete to return to full fitness and active involvement in his or her chosen sport as
quickly and as safely as possible. In order to achieve this objective, a number of
theoretically based injury management principles and practical techniques may be
identified as follows.

Helping athletes to cope with injury: from theory to practice 259