Supervision and Mindfulness in Sport and Performance Psychology

Abstract

AbstractThe topic of supervision has been a late arrival in the applied sport psychology world of discussion and debate. The field of performance psychology is even newer than sport psychology, and there is little in this field that addresses useful models of supervision. This chapter focuses on supervision in applied sport psychology. Supervision in our field has borrowed extensively from mainstream counseling and clinical psychology models. There is no real, viable model of supervision based on the cognitive-behavioral therapy derived psychological skills training (PST) paradigm that seems to be dominant in our field. One of the current trends in counseling and clinical psychology has been the exploration of the usefulness of mindfulness in a variety of therapeutic settings. In this chapter, I review the applied sport psychology literature on supervision and how advancements in mindfulness and the field of interpersonal neurobiology (neural correlates of presence, attunement, and resonance between therapists and clients and supervisors and supervisees) can inform applied sport (and performance) psychology practice. As a psychodynamic/Buddhist philosophy-oriented psychotherapist and supervisor, I argue that a mindfulness approach to sport and performance psychology supervision (and treatment) service delivery is a transtheoretical model that could be applicable to almost any of the helping professions. I conclude this chapter with a case example of how a mindfulness-based psychodynamic approach to beginning supervision might sound and feel like for the practitioner and the supervisee.