Mental Health in Elite Sport

"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

"When people talk about sport competition they often enjoy those critical moments, fantastic performance, and unbelievable comeback in a final. They may well understand the philosophy of no pain, no gain, but in elite sport they still, however, underestimate how much pain those athletes stand in long term training. Tough training, high physical demand, and high pressure are often beyond the expectation or competence of athletes, and thus arouse mental health (MH) concerns from sport psychologists. As a book in the ISSP book series, Mental Health in Elite Sport: Applied Perspectives from Across the Globe, Professor Carsten Hvid Larsen, 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 a variety of topics from conceptualization and definition of MH in elite sport to specific MH interventions across the globe. Those ideas and research findings about MH in 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 within elite sports. Without understanding the psychological aspect of elite sport one can not understand elite sport as a whole. With the same reasoning, without understanding the 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