L'arrêt du sport intensif : révélation d'addictions ?

Abstract

This study aims to show the impact of ending intensive sport activities on the psychic life of two former high level sportsmen and this under a psychoanalytical point of view. The question is to know whether ending intensive sport activities can be at the origin of an addiction of replacement (knowing meanwhile that the sportsman cannot accept the loss of his high level athlete statute) and whether the depression and the drop in self-esteem at the end of a sportsman's career are inevitable. The ending of a sportsman's career also puts an end to his quasi-pathological identity research, research which could be compared to a borderline behaviour. Moreover, a high level sportsman is more vulnerable at the end of his career and can be much more inclined to become dependent on drugs or on other addictions. During his career two distinct worlds surround him: the sporting family of adoption and the family unit. We can therefore question whether the sportsman dissociates these two families on a psychical level in order not to fall into a depression or into another dependence. Stopping sport activities is thus synonymous with a total loss of oneself; and this can therefore involve an anguish of separation and a probable fall into a social vacuum and into addiction.