The Use of Psychology and Psychoanalysis for High Performance Sports

Abstract

Sports psychology is essentially based on cognitive-behavioral psychology, thus focusing almost exclusively on conscious mental processes. Psychoanalysis, which focuses on unconscious psychic processes, has been used very little, if at all, until now. Psychoanalytic concepts such as the Unconscious, transference/ countertransference, resistance, psychic structure, desire, anxiety, secondary gain and parapraxes are also explored. The use of psychodynamic instruments, such as projective tests and genograms, is also considered. Injuries, team building, cohesion and team spirit, audience effects, fame, pride, pressure, responsibility, guilt, selfpresentation on social media, women, men, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion, are examined within a psychoanalytic framework Many concrete examples are provided throughout the process to illustrate the real possible use of psychoanalysis in improving performance. Sports psychology must go far beyond mental skills training. The sports psychologist must be able to provide more than quick, short-term answers and solutions to problems and challenges. Using psychoanalysis can lead to sustainable change at an individual, personal and organizational level. In this sense, the objective is to carry out a bibliographical review that can discuss what these contributions are, using, initially, aspects of the classical theory of psychoanalysis that trace clues to its relationship with sport, to then make an analysis of what the authors say. studies that proposed to unravel the possible encounters with the performance of athletes.