Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

As indicated earlier in our analysis of the work of Hoberman (1992), criticisms have
also been levelled at sport psychology from outside the field. For example, some athletes
and journalists are sceptical of the value of the discipline. To illustrate, consider the
dismissive attitude to sport psychologists displayed by Goran Ivanisevic, the former
Wimbledon champion who observed that “You lie on a couch, they take your money, and
you walk out more bananas than when you walk in” (cited in LeUnes and Nation, 2002,
p. 18; see also Figure 1.3). Similar scepticism of the value of sport psychology is evident
in professional football in England. For example, in 1997, a survey of forty-four football
clubs was conducted by the BBC Radio 5 Live documentary team On The Line. Results
showed that three-quarters of the clubs questioned had either never used, or would not
ever consider using, a sport psychologist (see Bent, McIlroy, Mousley and Walsh, 2000).
These clubs justified this decision by claiming that their own coaching staff, who are
usually former professional players, knew best how to deal with the psychological needs
of the footballers. Fortunately, Sven-Göran Eriksson, the current England team manager,
does not share this view and has emphasised the importance of recruiting sport
psychologists to deal with the mental side of football. Thus he suggested that “if we go
into the heads of players we need a specialist to do it, but I believe that this is the future
of the game” (cited in Every, 2002, p. 1).
What is the origin of this scepticism of sport psychology in football circles in Britain?
One possibility is that it stems from a popular myth—the misidentification of psychology
with psychiatry. Unfortunately, headlines that refer to managers who consult “shrinks”
promulgate two potentially damaging ideas about sport psychology. First, by using the
word “shrinks” (which is a popular slang abbreviation of the term “head shrinkers”), the
headline suggests that sport psychologists are psychiatrists. In addition, it implies that
they are consulted or called in only when there is a problem to be solved. It is worth
noting that this view of sport psychology as a branch of psychiatry is based on the
medical model that we explored in the previous section of this chapter. Perhaps it is this
myth that players are “patients” who need to be “shrunk” by medical specialists that lies
at the heart of certain journalists’ scepticism of sport psychology. Unfortunately, as Box
1.9 shows, this discipline has also been associated in the popular mind with spoon
bending and faith healing. In the light of this caricature of sport psychology as portrayed
by some media, is it any wonder that Graham Taylor was pilloried in certain quarters for
using a psychologist with the England team in the European Championships in 1992
(G.Taylor, 2002)?

Box 1.9 Thinking critically about...sport psychology, spoon beading

and faith healing

Despite its scientific status, the discipline of sport and exercise psychology has not
always received a universal welcome from the athletic community. To illustrate, consider
two controversies which affected the public image of the field in the late 1990s as the
England soccer team prepared to compete in the 1998 World Cup finals in France. First,
Uri Geller, the famous entertainer,

claimed to have been hired by Glenn Hoddle (coach of the England soccer team at that
time) and the English Football Association to use his“magic crystals”in order to prepare

Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction 28