Mental Performance
The Canadian Sport Psychology Association (CSPA) is an organization devoted to applied sport psychology that is comprised of both certified mental performance consultants and registered psychologists. Applied sport psychology involves facilitating the development of mental and emotional skills, techniques, attitudes, perspectives, and processes that lead to performance enhancement and positive development through sport.
Mental performance consultants work at the individual and collective level using an educational approach to achieve some of the following objectives (but are not limited to):
- Mentally plan for training/competitions and debriefing performance;
- Learn specific performance enhancement techniques (e.g. goal-setting);
- Regulate arousal, stress, and/or performance anxiety;
- Improve concentration (e.g., routines, distractions, mistake management);
- Improving self-talk and confidence;
- Support leader and leadership development within a team;
- Improving communication skills between athletes and coaches;