Sports Psychology Example Essay

 Exam Question:

You have been employed by the Talented Athlete Support Scheme to work with a young female football player.  You are being funded through TASS, a scheme providing money for talented athletes identified as having potential in sport.  As such you are accountable to the head of TASS psychology lead.

You have already had a session with the player.  This session was supposed to act as a needs analysis.  Your notes from the original interview are below.

The TASS lead has requested a report that describes and evaluates your proposed course of action with the player.

You should focus on the following:

1. Giving a clear evaluation of your philosophy as a sports psychologist 

2. Critically evaluating the nature and purpose of the interventions/sessions you intend to conduct

3. Showing a clear method for working in an ethical way

4. Giving an appreciation of how you would evaluate the work

Case Notes: Session 1

Name: Emma Ede

Age: 19

Sport Football (holding midfield player)

Emma is a footballer that is in the England U23 squad and is a professional player with a Championship club.  Emma has had a really good season and now regularly starts for her club side where she feels valued and comfortable.

Previously Emma was signed to play in a Womens Super League (WSL) club.  She had come through the academy at this club and was delighted to sign as a professional in her childhood club.  However, in the season (last season 2020/21) that she played for the WSL club she never started for the 1st team despite being promised that she would get game time.  Conversations between Emma and the WSL club manager that questioned her ability and commitment led Emma to question her own ability. Despite moving to a lower league club and getting game time Emma reports not feeling confident that she is a good player.  She reports that other players come up to her and say kind things e.g. “I love playing with you, you always have so much time on the ball and are so calm” but she cannot see it and feels completely the opposite to this.

While she does feel this way, in her heart of hearts despite lacking confidence in the moment she does report that she has not seen nor played alongside anyone that she thought was out of her league.  

Your feeling after the initial meeting is that there is a lot going for Emma and that while there could be refinements made to her preparation and psychological approach she is generally speaking very strong from a psychological standpoint.  You are also curios about her smooth progression into the WSL and never being questioned until she is a full time professional being a reason why the negative statements now over a year ago will be impacting her so much, i.e. she has never faced adversity before as a result of her ability keeping her away from it.

Emma is a very modest quietly spoken person.  She briefly discussed being slightly overwhelmed by the England set up suggesting that they do not see the best of her.