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This paper discusses the delivery of sport psychology services to physically challenged (disabled) athletes. It begins with a description of the current status of athletic competition for physically disabled individuals. Commonalities in the sports experience of able-bodied and physically disabled athletes are addressed. Unique issues that must be considered for effective sport psychology consultations with disabled athletes are discussed. These include the background of physical and psychological trauma, altered physiological responses and medical problems, complexities in motivation to compete, unique performance problems, and the structure and organization of disabled sports. The article concludes with the effects of the social environment of disabled sports on the consultation process.

A definition for the term and field of medical psychology is proposed. The area is seen as comprising psychosomatics, somatopsychology, health care studies, and behavioral medicine. Suggestions for supporting the growth of this psychological specialty are offered.It has been suggested recently (Asken, 1975) that medical psychology is a rapidly expanding field of study with an even greater potential for development. Recent articles in this and other journals (APA Task Force on Health Research, 1976;Schofield, 1976;Wexler, 1976;Wiggins, 1976) provide ample evidence that the suggestion was not superfluous. Psychology and medicine are now more than ever seriously recognizing their possible mutual contributions. Recent surveys show more and more psychologists are working in health care settings in expanded and changing roles (Routh, 1972;Wagner, 1968;Witkin, Mensh, & Gates, 1972).One question raised, or left unanswered, by all of these articles, however, is just what constitutes medical psychology. This is not surprising, for the simplicity of the question fails to intimate the complexity of the response required. Nonetheless, this article will present an initial definition for this emerging field.The need for such definition is extremely acute, for although more and more psychologists are becoming involved in medical psychology, the term has no standard definition, and the label is not applied routinely to related activities. For example, Duke University Medical Center (Edwards, Note 1) supports a Division of Medical Psychology, and Baylor University (Kirk, Note 2) offers a graduate course entitled "Medical Psychology." Neither of these endeavors solely emphasizes material that will be described as germane to medical psychology as a field, however. Further, despite their titles, the British Journal of Medical Psychology and Psychological Medicine are mainly focused on traditional psychiatric disorders. Conversely, articles and pursuits that might appropriately be termed medical psychology can be found in journals ranging from the Journal of Abnormal Psychology to the Journal of the American Medical Association to the Journal of Occupational Therapy and under a variety of descriptive titles including "behavioral medicine," "psychological and social medicine," "psychosocial medicine," and "health care psychology."This lack of definition for the field results in more than just semantic confusion, however. Definitional incongruities make evaluative statements about medical psychology as an activity difficult because the target of the evaluation is so elusive. Protestations of unjust inclusion or exclusion often result, because individuals can never be sure whether their interests and activities have or have not been included under one of these nonstandardized terms (e.g., Kreiger, 1975). Further, definitional discrepancies make the assimilation of information from medical-psychological endeavors difficult because many important activities are flourishing but in isolated self-labeled pockets. Without concurrence and coor...

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Psychological performance training has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of stress for police officers. We contributed to this body of evidence using techniques in breathing, mental performance imagery, and attentional focus. One group (experimental) of police academy cadets was trained in these techniques to deal with the stressful event of being sprayed with oleoresin capsicum (OC). Their physiological and behavioral responses to the event were compared to a control group of cadets. The results showed the experimental group demonstrated significantly better memory recall of salient aspects of the OC spray event and that cadets from both groups using controlled breathing during the event scored significantly higher in memory recall. Several trends were found that further suggested the effectiveness of psychological performance training. While heart rate increased from baseline to pre-OC and post-OC measures across groups, there were no group differences at these time points. Our findings add to the growing body of literature on psychological skill training effects on tactical performance and are notable for results of enhanced performance occurring with relatively brief training in the psychological techniques.Because of the ecological design, the findings should generalize to other high stress encounters in policing.