Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 1992 May;149(5):606-14.
doi: 10.1176/ajp.149.5.606.

An overview of sport psychiatry

Affiliations
Review

An overview of sport psychiatry

D Begel. Am J Psychiatry. 1992 May.

Abstract

Objective: Although the application of psychiatric methods and principles to sports is relatively unsystematic at this time, athletic behavior presents several issues of interest to psychiatry. The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the developmental, occupational, pathologic, therapeutic, and research aspects of sport psychiatry.

Method: Studies in psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis provide the basis for this overview, and nonscientific works are cited where they illuminate various issues. Illustrative case examples are also reported.

Results: It is proposed, but not proven, that athletes undergo phase-specific development and that they may suffer impairments in adapting to the athletic context. This context may also modify treatment modalities.

Conclusions: There is a need for more clinical studies of athletes, especially in the realms of childhood traumas, competitive issues, and mental illnesses. Because of the close relationship of mental and physical phenomena in sports and because athletic behaviors are often precisely measurable, athletics may constitute a fruitful area for psychiatric research.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources