Context-driven sport and exercise psychology practice: Widening our lens beyond the athlete

Many years ago, when our co-editors undertook our respective versions of sport psychology formal training, considerable emphasis was placed on theory and mental skills practice. We believed that understanding how these two aspects worked together made for learned and also, effective practitioners (see Martens, 1987). We can both recall the words of mentors, directing us to the application of existing theories, so that we could be systematic as we entered into practical contexts, based on rigorously tested frameworks. However, every sport psychologist and athlete who steps into an unfamiliar training environment quickly realizes that there is uniqueness in the local context. Each sport has its own demands, dress code, terminology, a means of relating with athletes and coaches, and an accepted series of normalized behaviors developed for various reasons, such as current historical or political reasons and climates, also known as “zeitgeist” (see Schinke, Stambulova, Oghene, & Trepanier, 2014). There is also each local training environment to attend to embedded within each sport, where training is carried out and athletes developed (Schinke et al., 2014). Some of these local environments have coaches who adopt egalitarian leadership approaches, and others adopt a system of hierarchy with coaches at the top and athletes situated beneath (Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013). Athletes also relate uniquely based on the organizational culture they are training in, with some being supportive of teammates and others viewing teammates as in direct competition. Despite these nuances, little is presently known and taught about how a practitioner might step into a local context, taking into account these and other aspects found in the training environment. Understanding these nuances takes time, practice, and most important, openness to appreciate that what one has learned in formal courses is only part of a larger performance picture that only comes with experience.

General discussions relating to cultural sport psychology (CSP) have permitted scholars and practitioners to begin to explore their local surroundings, enabling these people to attempt to belong and contribute to athlete development in a context, based upon its idiosyncrasies (Ryba & Wright, 2005). Much of the earliest discussions were focused on unique service provisions at a national level (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009), such as with athletes from Sweden and Russia (see Stambulova, Johnson, & Stambulov, 2009). These discussions continue in present day and reveal some of the unique processes and systems that effect athlete development within national contexts (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013). Our field has also journeyed into more finite explorations during the past 10 years. Conceptually, we now recognize that each sport environment must be understood for how it functions, why this is the case, and then, how to find one's right place as a contributing (as opposed to debilitating) mental performance consultant. Recently, one of us began work with an elite ice-hockey team. The interview process leading to initial entry was with an owner who asked what could be offered to enhance his team's performance? He already had a spiritual counsellor and a consultant focused on athlete well-being. The response, which captured his interest, was based on a careful environmental scan of the organization's website, media, and social media presence (i.e., how the organization's staff were presenting and perhaps regarding their context). From these explorations, the uniqueness of the sport organization and its reputation came to light, including it being a highly successful feeder system to the National Hockey League, but not a successful performing team in its own right. The question posed in the discussion that ensued was whether long-term athlete development should be the team's focus and how this related to the longevity of the team in terms of its own local fan base, athlete recruitment, and staff selection. The aspects of sport psychology were being offered in a vacuum and not in relation to the team's organizational history and current status and plights. Our discussions in that context are now beginning to expand as the staff begins to consider (and reconsider) the vision of the organization into the future to ensure that tentative new steps in sport psychology services are well received and in accordance with the organization's goals and viability.

This idea of attending to context is not solely an idea with roots in cultural sport psychology. Recently, Gershon Tenenbaum (2016) presented the Coleman Griffith Lecture at the Association for Applied Sport Psychology Annual Conference. His focus was on athlete cognition, not culture. What he suggested is that rookie athletes, be they football (soccer) or American football players, develop in their capacity to attend to their environment as they garner expertise. Novice athletes on a field of play attend to one opponent on the opposing team. With the correct training, athletes are able to attend to the wider field, ideally, compounded further by the development of shared mental models that expand the use of a broadened vision to the group (Gershgoren et al., 2016). Consequently, such athletes act and react better in performance and they miss fewer informational cues about their opponents' strategies, so as to develop their own effective strategy in situ. Similarly, we propose that practitioners in the field of sport psychology can attend to a single athlete or coach, though with time, they will recognize that these individuals are parts of a wider environment that helps to explain past, and predict future performance. Situating performers within their contexts is a promising line of thinking (and doing), as without the ability to also broaden our practical lens, we will never understand any client's full story and then, how to best support excellence in and through sport.

Unpacking context

What we presented above should be reasonable justification in terms of why context is important to understand and use as part of one's practical approach. The term context carries with it a few important, intersecting implications that are worthy of consideration. Contexts relate to events and processes “that characterize a particular situation and have an impact on an individual's behaviour” (Reber, 1995, p. 159), at both the overt and covert levels. Each context is typically associated with effects, where a particular stimulus found within the environment is presented and it is then followed by a behavioral response, a form of adaptation in relation to how one is situated as individual and environment merge. Logically then, every thought, emotion, and or behavior that a potential client makes, or exhibits, takes place in situ, as opposed to being made within a vacuum of one's mind and body. Terms such as fundamental attribution error unearth and problematize a human tendency to examine the behaviors of people in our environments without accounting for situational factors (Rees, Ingledew, & Hardy, 2005). The outcome from this limited evaluation is a judgement regarding dispositions, remiss of any understanding of mitigating circumstances. The most important and influential elements from each context need to be understood in relation to the client, or organization, in advance of acting, given that people are influential and influenced products in their environments.

This special issue

The current instalment, then, is devoted to “Context Driven Sport and Exercise Psychology Practice.” Hence, the focus in this special issue is as follows:

to increase awareness and professional reflexivity and encourage an open exchange among sport and exercise practitioners worldwide. This exchange will be focused on cultural and sub-cultural contexts where practitioners work and how these contexts inform what (i.e., content), how (i.e., strategies, tools, assessment instruments), and why (e.g., theoretical frameworks, “local” research, professional philosophy) they work with their clients. (Schinke & Stambulova, 2016, p. 1)

Six manuscripts were accepted to achieve this objective. Colleen M. Hacker and Mallory E. Mann from the United States authored “Talking across the divide: Reflections and recommendations for context-driven, cultural sport psychology.” The authors have adopted an activist stance within their submission and explain why there is a need for cultural sport psychology interventions at the center of practice. Chun-Qing Zhang, Gangyan Si, Pak-Kwong Chung, and Danran Bu considered “A three-stage adversity coping model for Chinese athletes.” A particular focus in this manuscript is placed on how Chinese athletes develop their mental skills from novice to world-class status. The authors consider these three stages and propose that sport psychology services in their country should be tailored to each developmental phase, to ensure healthy adjustment and progress. Michelle Seanor and colleagues contributed “Cultivating Olympic champions: A trampoline development environment from grass roots to podium.” They focus on a unique trampoline environment where successive Olympic champions have been produced and why this is the case. The authors utilize a moving story approach to walk through the training environment with the head coach, an assistant coach, and a successful Olympian in order to understand what exactly makes this organizational climate so successful. Stephen D. Mellalieu focuses his manuscript on “Sport psychology consulting in professional rugby union in the United Kingdom.” Mellalieu presents a highly reflexive account of how he, a seasoned practitioner, continues to work within a professional sport context, drawing upon his consulting philosophy. C. H. Larsen from Denmark provides “Bringing a knife to a gunfight: A coherent consulting philosophy might not be enough to be effective in professional soccer.” Within this submission, the author proposes why understanding a professional team context is necessary beyond mental skills knowledge in order to retain one's position as a mental training consultant. We conclude this issue with a synthesis of the findings in the form of postulates, each revealing a recommendation for context-driven research to practice. From this installment, the intention is to invite further dialog relating to context-specific practice.