Sport, Mental Illness and Sociology

At a timewhen the public discussion of mental illness in society is reaching a highpoint, athletes and other sports insiders remain curiously silent about theirprivate battles with a range of mental illnesses. While a series ofprofessional athletes have exposed the deep, dark secret related to thepervasiveness of mental illness in high performance sport, relatively little isknown, sociologically, about what mental illness culturally means inside sport. This editedcollection showcases research on how sport, as a social institution, mayactually produce dangerous cultural practices and contexts that foster thedevelopment of mental illness within athlete groups. Further, chapters alsoillustrate how sport, when organized with sensitivity and care, may serve tohelp manage mental illnesses. Rather than analyzing mental illness as anindividual phenomenon, contributors to this volume equally attest to how mentalillness is socially developed, constructed, managed, and culturally understoodwithin sport settings. The book highlights the relevance of a range of theoriespertinent to the social study of mental illness including dramaturgy, culturalstudies, learning theory, symbolic interaction, existentialism, and total paintheory. Chapters range from the discussion of depression, anxiety, eatingdisorders, drug addiction, epilepsy, mental trauma, stigma, the mass mediationof mental illness, and the promise of sport as a vehicle for personal andcollective recovery.