Sports Psychology Questionnaire: Mental Health in Sports Performance

This questionnaire-based assignment delves into the intersection of sports and psychology, examining the mental health challenges faced by athletes, including anxiety, depression, and performance pressure. It explores the roles of sports psychologists and counselors, highlighting the vulnerability of athletes to mental stress and the potential complications arising from these issues, such as substance abuse and eating disorders. The assignment details the necessity of interventions like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), analyzing their benefits and principles. It further explores the application of these psychotherapies in sports, emphasizing how CBT enhances performance and manages stress, and REBT improves self-acceptance. The assignment also touches upon the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in sports, including the role of intervention programs and the evaluation methods involved, concluding with the opinions of stakeholders and potential strategies to reduce stressors in sporting events. The assignment references several studies to support the arguments made in the paper.

Running Head: QUESTIONNAIRE
SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1QUESTIONNAIRE
1. How is psychology being connected with sports?
Sports is a field of profession that requires physical as well as mental strength. The work
performance pressure, physical strain and mental stress of events can lead to severe
psychological issues in an individual. Psychology helps in treating the negative affect in
sports performance due to mental stress and vice versa.
2. What is the role of a sports psychologist?
A sports psychologists studies the correlation between sports and psychology. They dwell
further into the study of psychology influencing sports and its effects on exercise,
physical activity and athletic performance. They also work with professional athletes to
motivate and guide them through their mental stress.
3. How do sports psychologists differ from sports counselors?
Sports counsellors counsel people who are interested in the career of sports. They give
advice and feedbacks regarding different branches in the field of sports such sport
psychologists or coaches. They typically work for schools, day camps and non-profit
organizations that is into sports.
4. Why are athletes vulnerable to mental stress?
Society perceives professional athletes as some heroes and they forget that they are
humans too. They need to have speed, strength, willpower, skills and powers that is of
supreme quality. The increasing pressure to perform the best has led them into mental
stress and disorders that follows up to depression and anxiety.

2QUESTIONNAIRE
5. What are the major challenges faced by them?
The major issues faced by them are anxiety, work pressure, depression, burden of
performing the best, low self-esteem and confidence, poor focus or poor concentration,
frustration, perfectionism and low motivation.
6. What complications are triggered due to these challenges?
Due to extreme pressure and trauma athletes tend to get themselves into substance abuse
and eating disorders, which causes deterioration in their performance. They indulge into
drugs, steroids to increase the quality of their performance and eating disorders such as
bulimia nervosa and anorexia.
7. Why is it necessary to take interventions to treat their issues?
It is seen that many athletes do not get the desired help they need because of certain
issues and complications such as dearth of sports psychologists and people not
understanding their trauma as they are assumed to be super humans.
8. What are some suitable interventions for an athlete’s mental health traumas?
Psychologists recommend a number of psychotherapies and medications for athletes who
suffer from mental stress and trauma. Few of them are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
(CBT), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and medications such as nutritional
supplements and anti-depressants.
9. Which one of the psychotherapies are more beneficial for the sports field?
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is widely used inside sports and outside as well. Whereas
rational emotive behavior therapy is a branch of CBT and it is a backbone of
psychological
Skills training that is needed to enhance and maintain the performance of an athlete.

3QUESTIONNAIRE
10. What does CBT treat?
It is based on the idea that the reactions we form in our life is not because of the event but
how we perceived it. It is goal oriented and problem specific approach that requires the
attention and active participation of the person involved.
11. How does REBT work?
This is a psychotherapy that was developed by psychologists Albert Ellis. It is one of the
types of Cognitive behavior therapy. It is focused on the idea of differentiating between
rational and irrational thoughts. It delivers 3 types of acceptances known as unconditional
self-acceptance, unconditional other-acceptance and unconditional life-acceptance.
12. What is the difference between CBT and RBT?
CBT works on increasing an athlete’s self-esteem and confidence. Whereas, REBT helps
improving self-acceptance and instead of focusing on a person’s weakness it aims on
feeling positive about every situation. Even the trauma is minimized with the help of
conditioned thinking.
13. What are the major principles of REBT?
The major principle that REBT focuses on is self-acceptance, life-acceptance, and
unconditional other-acceptance. It is following the idea of accepting things even if they
are not according to our wishes. Self-awareness and acceptance of others including
recognition that will contribute to the happiness of athletes.
14. What is REBT used to treat other than in sports psychology?
It is used to treat suicidal thoughts, depression, low self-esteem and recovery from sexual
abuse. As this framework is about distinguishing between rational and irrational thoughts.

4QUESTIONNAIRE
This psychotherapy helps in erasing negative thoughts about any events and focuses on
thinking positive about life situations.
15. What is the ABC model of REBT?
This framework has a model that is based on the ABC model which is activating event
(the situations occurring around us), Beliefs (a perception we have regarding the
situation), Consequences (our perceptions have beliefs that include behaviors and
feeling), Disputations of beliefs (challenging our beliefs to make new consequences) and
effective new beliefs (adapting new beliefs that will reduce the effects of the event).
16. What is the method of CBT?
The technique of cognitive behavioral therapy is evidence based and it about changing
feelings, behaviours and thoughts and enhance the experience of overall life functioning
and satisfaction. The common aspects of CBT is to enhance behavior and moods.
17. Can CBT be done by ourselves?
One of the goals of CBT is to “become your own therapist”, it can be implemented by
learning skills that can be used after the treatment is done. This helps in following the
method of this therapy even when it ends to keep feeling well.
18. What is a CBT session all about?
This is based on the concept that our feelings, physical sensation, actions and thoughts
are all interconnected. The negative feelings and thoughts can trap us in a never ending
cycle that ruins our mental health. It helps in breaking down our issues in smaller parts so
that it is easier to solve it.

5QUESTIONNAIRE
19. Is CBT suitable for anxiety?
It is one of the flexible therapies that can be altered to meet the needed requirements of a
therapy. Evidence suggests that it can considered fort a number of treatments, which can
be beneficial for different medical and mental health complications.
20. Are these psychotherapies suitable for sports psychology?
Sports psychology is a field of science that focuses on the impact of psychological issues
in the performance of athletes and physical activities, it also deals with the impact of
sports on the psychological health of an individual. These psychotherapies works on
changing the processes of the mind to eradicate negative thoughts. Therefore, CBT and
REBT is appropriate for sports psychology.
21. How can CBT be beneficial for athletes?
CBT is a powerful tool to help professional sport athletes by enhancing their
performances and managing stress more efficiently. This helps in their overall
performance in the field and helping them in coping up with the stress of work
performance.
22. Why are footballers at more risk of suffering from mental health disorders?
The game of football is set for a certain span of time and that can be pressurizing for the
players during the game. They have 90 minutes to win the game and achieve goals that
can be traumatic while playing.
23. How can mental disorders be diagnosed in the field of sports?
Mental complications cannot alone be diagnosed to imaging and X-ray screenings, it
requires counselling and few verbal tests and examination that can identify the cause of
certain mental disorders.

6QUESTIONNAIRE
24. How can this psychological intervention program be positive for the athletes who
are mentally affected?
Athletes can be treated with the help of intervention programs such as cognitive
behavioral therapy and rational emotive behavioral theory as it is included in the
program. This will help in reducing their stress and pressure during events.
25. How can it be evaluated in the end of the initiated program for the athletes?
The athletes will be given the feedback forms and counselling sessions with the sports
psychologists to describe their experiences and the aftermath of the therapeutic sessions.
26. Who all will be involved in this performance psychological program?
The stakeholders will be involved such as sports community managers, the sports
authority bodies of the government and sports schools that will help in investing capital
to enhance the program.
27. How many athletes will be involved in this program?
The athletes present for the football coaching will be required for this program including
the coach.
28. What are the opinions of the people involved in this program?
The sports psychologists and the players involved have a positive feedback regarding this
program because it is an initiative towards wellbeing and improvement of mental health
amongst the athletes.
29. What can be done to decrease the stressors in these sporting events other than the
therapies?
A healthy environment is necessary in these sports camps and coaching centers so that
the athletes do not feel at pressure during any competition.

7QUESTIONNAIRE
30. Is anxiety and depression treatable for athletes?
Mental disorders do not guarantee any cure but it can be maintained and decreased in
intensity according to the disease.

8QUESTIONNAIRE
References
Deen, S., Turner, M. J., & Wong, R. S. (2017). The Effects of REBT, and the use of credos, on
irrational beliefs and resilience qualities in athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 31(3), 249-
263.
Gustafsson, H., & Lundqvist, C. (2016). Working with perfectionism in elite sport: A Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy perspective. In The psychology of perfectionism in sport, dance and
exercise (pp. 219-237). Routledge.
Gustafsson, H., DeFreese, J. D., & Madigan, D. J. (2017). Athlete burnout: Review and
recommendations. Current opinion in psychology, 16, 109-113.
Gustafsson, H., Lundqvist, C., & Tod, D. (2017). Cognitive behavioral intervention in sport
psychology: A case illustration of the exposure method with an elite athlete. Journal of
Sport Psychology in Action, 8(3), 152-162.
Hardcastle, S. J., Tye, M., Glassey, R., & Hagger, M. S. (2015). Exploring the perceived
effectiveness of a life skills development program for high-performance
athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 139-149.
Palmer, S., & Whybrow, A. (2014). Coaching psychology: An introduction. In Handbook of
coaching psychology (pp. 21-40). Routledge.
Swann, C., Moran, A., & Piggott, D. (2015). Defining elite athletes: Issues in the study of expert
performance in sport psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 3-14.

9QUESTIONNAIRE
Wood, A. G., Barker, J. B., & Turner, M. J. (2017). Developing performance using rational
emotive behavior therapy (REBT): A case study with an elite archer. The Sport
Psychologist, 31(1), 78-87.
Wood, A. G., Barker, J. B., Turner, M. J., & Sheffield, D. (2018). Examining the effects of
rational emotive behavior therapy on performance outcomes in elite paralympic
athletes. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 28(1), 329-339.