26 - Sport and Thought: development of a sport-based therapeutic intervention

Abstract

Sport and Thought is a program that entails working with adolescent boys in a way that fuses football and psychodynamic thinking. The program was initially established in an inner-city, all-boys secondary school in London in response to the growing need for a therapeutic intervention that was accessible to adolescent boys with behavioral and emotional difficulties who would not engage via traditional therapeutic routes. The Sport and Thought model has evolved and has expanded its way of working with adolescents by reentering traditional learning environments of the school while continuing to work with the student body using the same principles as that of the football pitch.