What is Sport Psychology ?
According to the well-known ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, “the landholders regarding agriculture, patients regarding illness and athletes regarding training” seek for experts, “those who know, in order to heed them and do what is needed”. The importance of specialists, that is experts of their sector, had already been told since antiquity.
Sport psychology is a specialised field, which aims at helping the athlete and all the people that are somehow involved or wish to be involved in sports, in order to improve their performance. “Sound in body, sound in mind” is the saying that very aptly condenses the goal of the services that a scientifically educated sport psychologist, an expert of his sector, as Socrates would say. Sport psychology, established as a separate department of university studies more or less since 1970, is one of the necessary activities, alongside medical, pharmaceutical, physiotherapeutic, and nutritional support, that altogether complete the principal activity of sports, that is the exercise of the body itself.
Every athlete and every person involved in sports needs specified management. The specialist of psychological support, using various intervention means, ultimately aims at the improvement of the already existing competencies of each one separately and of all the members of a team or group as a whole. He doesn’t face anyone as a patient or as a “madman”, but as a human being capable of further trainig his mind and spirit.