'There are individuals who use it as an excuse': how are performance directors dealing with mental health issues?

A new study sheds light on how performance directors perceive and react to athletes' mental health challenges

Photo by Matthew Ball on Unsplash

“With a physical health issue obviously, we sort of…have a physical manifestation of injury often in pain. But if in doubt we can put a player in a scanner…and that’s much more difficult with mental health issues.”

The words of a performance director interviewed in Navigating athlete mental health: Perspectives from performance directors within elite sport, a paper exploring the attitudes of those charged with supporting athletes across some of sport’s standout disciplines.

This newsletter rarely focuses on a single study, but the research conducted by Erin Prior, Anthony Papthomas and Daniel Rhind makes for powerful reading. Highlighting instances of confusion, ignorance and over-simplification when it comes to identifying and dealing with mental health issues, the paper shows why there are continuing concerns over some sports’ ability to deal with the cultural crisis they are facing.

For those of you who don’t have time to read the research in full, I’ve pulled together a summary of the study in this week’s edition of the Mind Room.