I had come across a few sports psychologists, and I had no time for nearly all of them. I just don't think they work in a team environment.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A lot of athletes use sports psychologists.
I'm not really interested in sports psychology. It makes me feel like a crazy person.
If the coach is good, I don't think a psychologist is needed.
Psychology is much bigger than just medicine, or fixing unhealthy things. It's about education, work, marriage - it's even about sports. What I want to do is see psychologists working to help people build strengths in all these domains.
Psychology is a big part of sport that some people do not realise. But it is a skill you have to practice.
In a team situation, I think the players are more inclined to give the answer they believe the psychologist is looking for rather than maybe being totally honest.
I thought psychologists were people who rob, figuratively of course, money from the insecure. But they are not. They are people who are there to help you, and if you find a good psychologist, they will allow you to talk about everything and open up, without the slightest of fears, and that is no easy thing.
There's steps that I've taken already, and each week, talking with the sports psychologist on a routine basis and working with the different programs that we're going through. This is all stuff that you can say you're going to make a difference, but I'm putting it into action.
Psychologists really aim to be scientists, white-coat stuff, with elaborate statistics, running experiments.
We coaches have to learn how to deal with that: How do I get to each one best - with a talk, with video analysis? And what sort of tone? We need our own coaches for that. The sports psychologist coaches me too.