A broad compilation of updated prestigious writings on mental health in sport and physical activity

Marit Sørensen
Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

This book consists of carefully selected articles on the topic of mental health in sport and physical activity that have been published in the International Society of Sport Psychology, ISSP, flagship journal International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (IJSEP) and is endorsed by the Society’s Academy of Science. The times for the original publications vary from 2015 to 2022 but have been revisited and updated by authors in 2023/24.

The book is part of a series of edited books called International Perspectives on Key Issues in Sport and Exercise Psychology. The series is published in partnership with the International Society of Sport Psychology  and is edited by Robert Schinke, Thomas Schack and Athanasios Papaioannou. For more information about this series, visit the series’ webpage at Routledge.

The first three chapters of the book consist of (1) an Introduction where the establishment of the International Society of Sport Psychology Academy of Science is introduced, the process of its establishment and choice of the theme and structure for this book is explained; (2) an updated version of the Consensus Statement of Improving the Mental Health of High-performance Athletes by Henriksen et.al. (2023). Recognising that the field of athlete mental health has expanded extensively since the original consensus statement, this statement offers 6 propositions and recommendations for both sport organisations, researchers and practitioners; (3) an updated version of the ISSP’s position stand from 2018 now titled Mental Health through Occupational Health and Safety in High-Performance Sport by Schinke et al., 2024. The authors argue that comparing the time spent by professional and amateur athletes in the sport environment with time spent in in a standard work environment should lead to adopting similar standards for safe and healthy environments. Recommending a biopsychosocial understanding of health, the many factors within sport that can decrease mental health in high-performance sport are described, and suggestions for improvement are given. For youth sport it is recommended to base the work on the UN convention on the Rights of the Child.

This compilation of knowledge and understanding covers a broad range of topics related to mental health in sport and physical activity, making the book an important resource for researchers, practitioners and sport organisations.

The main part of the book consists of 12 individual articles that have previously ben published in the IJSEP. Together they cover a wide range of topics, theories and frameworks, methodologies and populations from a truly international group of authors, even if the main body of articles are on European populations (6 from Europe, 3 from Asia, 2 from North America/Canada, 1 from Australia). Together this gives valuable insight in different cultural and environmental differences of which it is important to be aware. However, similarities can be found.

The frameworks that are presented include Occupational Health and Safety, Dual Factor Model of Mental Health, Mental Health Management Model, and Athletic Career Transition Model, and theories include Achievement Goal Theory, Self-Determination Theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and theories on Passion, Perfectionism and Burnout. The individual articles present good state-of-the art introductions with reviews of relevant research of the different topics.

Methods presented and used include quantitative: cross-sectional ( 5 chapters), longitudinal, RCT, literature review and instrument validation (with 1 chapter each). In addition, there are 2 chapters with qualitative methodology as well as one chapter with theoretical framework development and a report on initial application. Also, there are reviews of psychopathology and well-being instruments as well as a comparison of two intervention tools, Psychological Skill Training (PST) and a Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment program (MAC).

The majority of articles are on elite and professional athletes (6 articles, one of them on retired elite athletes), 3 articles on student athletes, 2 on elderly or schizophrenic patients, and 1 on athletes in junior-to-senior transition (JST).

The book is concluded by the editors with a chapter on reflections and future pathways. They point out that the topic of mental health in sport and physical activity is expanding rapidly, and that it is important to deepen our understanding of effective ways to help people to thrive in or through the sport and physical activity experience. To that end, they present six key postulates about how to improve work with mental health in the world of sport before they end with a few words on The Academy’s path forward.

This compilation of knowledge and understanding covers a broad range of topics related to mental health in sport and physical activity, making the book an important resource for researchers, practitioners and sport organisations. Because it has such a broad span, it is especially valuable as an introduction to the field of mental health in sport and physical activity.

In the introduction it is clearly stated that mental health has been central to ISSP for some time and is an expanding field. It is also said that mental health is not only about diagnosis and treatment, but also how people can thrive, a dual factor approach. The fact that the starting point for this book is what has been published in the IJSEP may give some explanation for the puzzling fact that one article describes how physical activity can help people with one very specific mental illness diagnosis (schizophrenia) to improve one specific impaired cognitive function. The article is important, interesting and meaningful, and may of course serve as an example of the vast body of research showing that sport and physical activity can offer to a large number of mental health illnesses and debilitating symptoms. However, personally I would have liked to make the readers aware of the large body of research on sport and physical activity and mental health illnesses including the field of sport psychiatry, even if most publications about this may be found in more medically oriented journals.

It is of great value that the articles have been revisited and updated for this publication. However, it varies how easy it is to detect what has been changed. Some of the articles are very upfront about what was the original article when it was published and offer reflections on the development of the research and literature up to the present, such as chapter 7, chapter 12 and 13. Some of the older ones seem to have made  new data collections, but it is not so easy to follow. Of course, the more recent the article has been published, the less is the need to update it, but it would be helpful for the reader if  the original year of publication were given for all the articles, and that they all gave a short statement of what had been updated.

These are manuscripts that a lot of people have read through, and it is of course difficult to know when in the process the small mistakes appear. However, for future reprints I would like to draw the attention to page 208 where there is a typo in Figure 11.3 (name of factor Y should be stress and not well-being). On page 209/10 the results from Model 2: Stress as the Dependent Variable is presented twice.

All in all, I would like to congratulate ISSP, the ISSP Academy of Science, the editors and all the contributors for a great contribution to the field of knowledge and understanding around mental health in sport and physical activity.

Copyright © Marit Sørensen 2024