Mental Health in Elite Sport

Carsten Hvid Larsen is an associate professor at the Faculty of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics at the University of Southern Denmark and head of sport psychology and sport psychology consultant in FC Nordsjaelland football club.Karin Moesch is employed as a sport psychologist at the Department for Elite Sports at the Swedish Sports Confederation. She also holds a position as a researcher at the Department of Psychology at Lund University.Natalie Durand-Bush is a sport psychology professor, scientist, and practitioner in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. Natalie is the Director of the SEWP LAB and the co-founder of the Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS).Kristoffer Henriksen is an associate professor at the Faculty of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics at the University of Southern Denmark and sport psychology practitioner in Team Denmark.

"When people talk about sport competition they often enjoy those critical moments, fantastic performance, and unbelievable comeback in a final. They may well understand philosophy of no pain, no gain in elite sport they still, however, underestimate how much pain those athletes stand in long term training. Tough training, high physical demanding, and high pressure are often beyond expectation or competence of athletes, and thus arouse mental health (MH) concerns from sport psychologists. As one of the ISSP book series, the book, Mental health in elite sport: Applied perspectives from across the globe, edited by Professor Carsten Hvid Larsen, Andreas Küttel, Karin Moesch, Natalie Durand-Bush and Kristoffer Henriksen give us a good opportunity to have both an overall picture and a detailed view to understand how important MH is for athletes’ sport career and long-term development. The discussions covered in this book include variety of topics from conceptualization and definition of MH in elite sport to specific MH interventions across countries. Those ideas and research findings about MH of elite sport are really very informative and inspiring for coaches, sport administration officers, athletes’ parents, as well as applied psychology students and sport psychologists. I feel that it is also a must for those professionals and supporting team staff working with elite sports. Without understanding psychological aspect of elite sport one can not understand elite sport as a whole. With the same reason without understanding MH of elite athletes one cannot understand elite athletes as a whole. So you are greatly encouraged to read this book. It is worth your time."—Liwei Zhang, Beijing Sport University, China"A book with all this knowledge combined is something I have longed for as a psychologist working around the world with professional athletes. The world wide perspective with different culture is well balanced and needed for a holistic perspective when working with mental health in a global perspective. This will help both clinical personal as well as athletes and coaches wanting to know more about mental health." —Caroline Jönsson, Founder and CEO of Insightgap Psychology AB

• List of contributors Series foreword 1. Setting the scene: Mental health in elite sport PART I. Cases and structures of mental health across countries 2. Mental health in Germany: Examples of good practice in preventing mental disorders and promoting mental health in elite athletes 3. Mental health in elite sport: perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa 4. Mental Health in Brazilian Sport: Olympic, Paralympic and Soccer Athletes 5. Establishing a mental health clinic for elite sports: The Swedish model 6. Creating a national system to support mental health and enhance well-being across high performance sport 7. Mental health and sport in Canada: An example of sport-focused collaborative care PART II. Specific interventions on mental health across countries 8. ACT for Health Anxiety and Performance Readiness 9. Coach’s Influence on Athletes’ Mental Health in Taiwan: A Case Report 10. Collaborative Case Management: Supporting Mental Health in the UK’s High Performance Sport System 11. From tragic incidents to sound value-based leadership: A summary Index