La blessure chez les sportifs de haut niveau : « Du hors jeu à la remise en jeu »

Abstract

The main target of the present study was to examine more deeply, and from a clinical point of view, the psychoaffectif processes used by higher-level sportsmen after injuries. Using a qualitative analysis of athlete’s discourses, we investigated the modalities of coping with injuries trauma and mainly we examined the place given for the reduction and for the immediate athlete’s environment in the management of the direct and indirect consequences of injuries. Results corroborate the idea that injuries represent a traumatic event that produces a major unbalance in the subject life and subsequently triggers a defence processes similar to those used in the work of mourning. Results revealed also the ambivalent nature of the injuries. Subjects can represent simultaneously injuries as loss and penalty, profit and benefit. Injuries can put the athlete offside, but, after readjustment, it can also represent a new starting point and a new source of progress. Such ambivalence suggests strongly the hypothesis that injuries produce a hidden conflict between antagonist motivations.