Female athletes and mental health: An under‐resourced relationship

Abstract

Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the US Open to take care of her mental health and Simone Biles' decision to withdraw from several Olympic events has focused attention on some of the issues that female elite athletes can face. While Biles' history includes trauma that one hopes is unusual, her struggles with anxiety and depression are not. In fact, elite athletes as a group are prone to experiencing anxiety and depression, and within the athletic population, females are more likely than males to do so, regardless of age. The number of college athletes that contend with serious mental health challenges is notable — one survey suggested that 30% reported feeling seriously overwhelmed, and 25% reported being mentally exhausted. Less than half felt they received adequate assistance when they requested it (Lindberg, 2021). In fact, in a survey of trainers, only 20.5% noted they had access to mental health services within the training room, and 46.4% thought their care for student athletes would be improved by this access. Less than half surveyed reported they use screening instruments for mental health disorders. Even the coaching relationship has been understudied for female athletes; we know about the benefits of a strong coaching relationship in a general sense, but researchers are just beginning to consider the gendered aspects of this for female athletes/male coaches in terms of such issues as power imbalance and/or coaching style.