The quest for professional self-understanding: Sense making and the interpersonal nature of applied sport psychology practice

Abstract

Several authors within the sport psychology literature have acknowledged an interpersonal dimension of applied practice, with several publications highlighting the significance of developing and maintaining effective working relationships with a range of key stakeholders (i.e., athletes, managers, coaches, sports physicians, parents). Through the use of a longitudinal series of semi-structured interviews across an eighteen month period, this article explores the experiences of four trainee practitioners and two qualified sport psychologists, and their perceptions of working with multiple stakeholders, examining how such encounters serve to shape and inform their professional self-understanding in a contextual manner. Key themes constructed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis accounted for finding one’s place, picking your battles and being seen to do a “good” job. Upon acknowledgement of self-perception and recognition from others as being fundamental factors in shaping a practitioner’s professional self-understanding, the present article encourages early career practitioners, and the professional bodies who train them, to increase their engagement with other fields and professions, with a view to better preparing sport psychologists for the everyday interpersonal demands of successful applied practice.

 Lay summary: This article explores trainee and qualified practitioners’ experiences and reflections of working with multiple stakeholders to better prepare sport psychologists for everyday interpersonal demands of successful applied practice.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

• The current article Furthermore highlights the inherently micropolitical nature of applied sport psychology contexts, illuminating the significant influence that interpersonal relationships with key contextual stakeholders can have upon a practitioner’s professional self-understanding.

• The current article serves to support practitioners’ efforts in seeking to better manage their interpersonal relationships with key stakeholders, enhancing their ability to “survive and thrive” as applied practitioners.

• The novel theoretical lens adopted within this study, provides a basis to help scaffold developmental activities relating to professional self-understanding, micropolitical activity, and contextual understanding.

Keywords:

• Stakeholder
• interpretative phenomenological analysis
• professional self-understanding

Over two decades ago, Simons and Andersen (1995) documented personal perspectives of eleven highly experienced sport psychology practitioners regarding the development and future of sport psychology. Their key message for aspiring practitioners looking to develop their career within sport psychology was for them to “learn who they are and know what they can and cannot do” (p. 463). More specifically, Simons and Andersen (1995) encouraged early career practitioners to “bring themselves to the dance” (p. 463) and “know thyself” (p. 466). Similarly, a number of scholars recognized that practitioners and their individual attributes are central components of their applied practice experiences (e.g., Andersen, 2000; Anderson et al., 2004; Poczwardowski et al., 1998). As a result of such developments, aspiring early-career practitioners sought to publish their own personal accounts of their formative applied experiences with a view to better coming to know, understand, and accept their applied “self” (e.g., Cropley et al., 2007; Holt & Strean, 2001; Lindsay et al., 2007; Rowley et al., 2012; Tonn & Harmison, 2004; Woodcock et al., 2008).

Publications produced by aspiring practitioners demonstrated how they developed their awareness of different approaches to doing sport psychology (Cropley et al., 2007); increased their awareness of personal beliefs and values (Lindsay et al., 2007); and became more self-assured in their own practice (Woodcock et al., 2008). Furthermore, this autoethnographical style of writing has provided a fascinating insight into early-career practitioners’ personal experiences, demonstrating how they made sense of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a contextually informed manner (Woodcock et al., 2008). Taken collectively, these reflective accounts have presented applied sport psychology as an interpersonal endeavor, illuminating the impact of contextual stakeholders on the sense of self that practitioners in turn develop (e.g., Cropley et al., 2007; Lindsay et al., 2007; Rowley et al., 2012).

The significance placed upon stakeholder interactions was further exemplified by McDougall et al. (2015), who interviewed six experienced UK practitioners and found that they strived to remain unaffiliated with any one “group” of stakeholders, as this enabled them to better address the fundamental professional and ethical considerations that may arise when developing multiple professional relationships. Furthermore, the findings documented by McDougall et al. (2015) also illustrated how practitioners were often required to reflect on whether the behaviors and actions of other key stakeholders were in keeping with their own professional beliefs, values and sense of self. As such, McDougall et al. (2015) called for the development of a knowledge base that better reflects how “sport psychology delivery and its place, role, function, and/or influence may vary, and indeed be tested, depending on the sport, sporting culture, and the athletes and individuals who coexist within a particular environment” (p. 267).

With several publications highlighting the apparent importance of a practitioner’s ability to understand the context within which they operate (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Chandler et al., 2016; Fifer et al., 2008; Holder & Winter, 2017; Mellalieu, 2017), the present article looks to further explore the inherently micropolitical nature of elite sporting contexts (cf. Potrac & Jones, 2009a, 2009b), as a means of accurately depicting the everyday interactions and sense-making of applied practitioners. Indeed, McCalla and Fitzpatrick (2016) outlined some important factors for practitioners to consider when attempting to integrate sport psychology within a team-based performance enhancement setting, with their interactions with other stakeholders, and the micropolitical nature of applied sport psychology contexts as being of particular importance. More recently, Rowley et al. (2018) provided a reflective, ethnographic analysis of the micropolitical nature of “everyday life” within a professional rugby league academy from the perspective of an early-career practitioner. Here, the lead author’s accounts of applied practice highlighted how issues of power, conflict, and vulnerability typified the day-to-day interactions and experiences of both the practitioner, and other key stakeholders.

Aligning with calls for further research within sport psychology that investigates the development of practitioners’ identity as a factor in determining how they respond to ethical dilemmas and balance competing stakeholder interests (cf. Tod et al., 2017), the present article aims to build on work of Rowley et al. (2018), by adopting Kelchtermans (2005, 2009a, 2009b) workings around professional self-understanding as a novel theoretical framework to help explore the momentary stories of practice shared by sport psychology practitioners. Kelchtermans purposefully avoided any suggestion of “identity” within his workings however, suggesting that the term implied a static essence and ignored the dynamic and biographical sense of understanding (Kelchtermans, 2009a). Kelchtermans also rejected the notion of the “real” self, choosing to instead acknowledge that self-understanding is inherent within the act of “telling,” and can only account for associations made in accordance with contextual circumstances. Accordingly, Kelchtermans (2009a, 2009b) conceptualization of professional self-understanding is comprised of five components: self-image (i.e., the way a person typifies themselves in their role), self-esteem (i.e., appreciation of actual job performances), job motivation (i.e., the motives or drives that make people choose to become, remain in or to leave the profession), task perception (i.e., the idea of what tasks and duties are required to do a good job) and future perspectives (i.e., a person’s expectations about their future career trajectory).

Therefore, the current article aims to further consider the utility of Kelchtermans (1996, 2009a, 2009b, 2011) workings around organizational life in schools, as a heuristic device for enriching conceptual understandings of trainee, neophyte and qualified practitioners’ experiences of working with a range of contextual stakeholders, and how this in turn influences their own “professional self-understanding” (cf. Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). The proposed significance of this article, therefore, lies in its response to calls for the development of an understanding of how practitioners’ knowledge, beliefs and convictions serve to influence their judgment and deliberation of interpersonal interactions (McDougall et al., 2015), and “how a practitioner’s self-understanding is impacted upon by the social recognition and engagement that they (may or may not) receive from key contextual stakeholders within a given applied setting” (Rowley et al., 2018, p. 16). Secondly, the present article aims to demonstrate how a practitioner’s self-understanding—as enacted within their discursive practices—serves to represent a momentary positioning of their ongoing process of sense-making (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). As Kelchtermans (2018) stated, this concept can be seen to encompass some of the ambiguities that can characterize professional roles, with self-understanding being seen as both a process and product, as being situated between agency and structure, and as being caught between intentionality and vulnerability.

Method

Paradigmatic assumptions

The present study was conducted from an interpretivist perspective (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Sparkes, 1992). This was with the primary focus to “understand the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it” (Schwandt, 1998, p. 221) with the central focus being to explore applied practitioners’ experiences of working with a range of contextual stakeholders, and how this influenced their own professional self-understanding. Interpretivist research recognizes the social construction of reality (Willis, 2007) and accordingly this paper also adopts a social constructivist epistemological standpoint to recognize the assimilation process a participant adopts in developing knowledge via new experiences. This paradigmatic approach recognizes that knowledge is seen to be constructed to reflect an individual’s understanding of the world, their lived experiences, personal reflections, and their interactions with others and their environment (Smith & Sparkes, 2016). Thus, such an approach enables the exploration of how an individual makes sense of critical incidents to navigate the inherently complex social world of applied sport psychology.

Participants

Purposeful sampling was employed, and several prerequisites were established to determine a participant’s eligibility (Merriam, 2002). All participants (n = 6) had completed the Qualification in Sport and Exercise Psychology (QSEP) Stage 1 (and therefore held a Master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology that was accredited by the British Psychology Society (BPS)), and had completed/or were in the process of completing BPS QSEP Stage 2, possessing a minimum one year of experience delivering sport psychology services within a sporting organization. Three participants were in the process of completing BPS QSEP Stage 2, one obtained their Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) accreditation during the data collection process, and two were already HCPC accredited, possessing over five years of professional experience apiece as qualified practitioners. Through the process of purposive sampling, the current study sought to explore the perspectives of practitioners across a range of professional roles and experiences, and therefore, understanding of working as part of a multidisciplinary team was an important eligibility criterion within the present study. Also, participants provided an insight into the role of a sport psychologist operating at different organizations from a range of sports (e.g., soccer, swimming, athletics) either on a part-time, full-time, or consultancy basis. Additional demographic information (and participant pseudonyms) are summarized in the Table 1.

Table 1. Participants demographic information.

Participant (pseudonym)	Gender	Career stage	Qualifications/Accreditation
Dan	Male	Trainee SEP	BSc, MSc
Amy	Female	Trainee SEP	BSc, MSc
Tom	Male	Trainee SEP	BSc, MSc
Alice	Female	Neophyte SEP	BSc, MSc/CPsychol, HCPC Obtained BPS accreditation during the data collection period
Steve	Male	Experienced SEP	BSc, MSc/CPsychol, HCPC 5 Years + BPS accredited
Jake	Male	Experienced SEP	BSc, MSc, PhD/CPsychol, HCPC 20 years + British Association of Sport Exercise Sciences accredited 5 Years + BPS accredited

Data collection

The present study adopted a longitudinal approach (Caruana et al., 2015) to data collection to better understand any temporal change in a practitioner’s self-perceptions in accordance with any changing contextual circumstances. This prolonged engagement with participants provided scope for follow-up questions and elaboration around points raised in previous interviews, thereby increasing the credibility of study. The different facets that comprise Kelchtermans (2005, 2009a, 2009b) theorizing around professional self-understanding were utilized to help inform the individual interview guides, with open questions being posed to help explore the practitioner’s unique perspectives and sense-making. Questions such as “can you describe a typical week within your current role?,” “how would you describe your interactions with (a specified key stakeholder)?” and “can you describe any developments in your relationships with (a specified key stakeholder)?” guided the overarching discussion, and participants were encouraged to lead the conversation and introduce topics that were meaningful to them beyond the interview guide. The interview guides utilized as part of the current study can be made available upon request from the first author using the correspondence details provided.

The objective of the data collection process was to capture participants’ accounts of formative experiences throughout their professional careers to date. To help achieve this, participants were first asked to produce a timeline of the applied roles and responsibilities that they had held within sport psychology. This included the organizations they worked at, the duration of their involvement in the organizations, the competitive level of athletes (youth/senior, international, club level) the participants supported, and the key stakeholders that the participant primarily worked with. These timelines served as a memory aid during the subsequent interviews (Kolar et al., 2015), facilitating a recollection and sequencing of personal events (Berends, 2011). Also, to develop a detailed understanding of the participants’ current roles, data were collected over an eighteen-month timeframe. During this period, six participants took part in seven interviews, with one participant taking part in six interviews due to personal circumstances. This allowed participants to reflect more comprehensively on their professional experiences in a more temporal manner, as opposed to obtaining “snapshot data” (Murray et al., 2009, p. 959) of lived experiences that were specific to a particular time and place. As a result, a more holistic understanding of participants was developed, and the researcher was able to gather “thick” descriptions of individual experiences (Vincent, 2013). At the time of data collection participants were based at seven different locations across England. Therefore, to increase access to geographically disparate participants, data collection was conducted as a combination of face-to-face (n = 5) and online interviews (n = 37). In recent years, telephone/online interviews have been recognized as an effective method of obtaining rich, vivid, detailed, and high-quality data, particularly from geographically disparate participant samples (Smith & Sparkes, 2016; Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004). Each interview lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, were reordered onto a voice recorder, and were transcribed verbatim. Transcripts yielded 447 pages of 1.08 spaced interview data.

Data analysis

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2009) was utilized to develop an in-depth understanding of participants’ lived experiences and the personal meaning attributed to key events. In the present study, the data analysis took six steps: reading and re-reading, initial noting, developing emergent themes, searching for connections across emergent themes, moving to the next case and looking for patterns across cases (Smith et al., 2009). First, the data analysis process was performed on a case-by-case basis. Transcripts were read and re-read several times in order to become as familiar as possible with the accounts. Descriptive and interpretative notes for each meaningful unit were added to capture the essential quality of what was being said within the verbatim transcripts (Smith & Osborn, 2015). Next, the data analysis process took an analytical shift and focused on mapping the interrelationships, connections and patterns between initial exploratory notes to identify emergent themes for a single case (Smith et al., 2009). Connections between the emergent themes were made before then moving to another case and repeating the process. As the clustering of the themes emerged, they were checked against the data to ensure the connection to the actual participants’ accounts. Finally, all themes were analyzed together to identify patterns across cases (Smith et al., 2009).

The theorizing of Kelchtermans (2005, 2009a, 2009b) was used as an interpretative lens that allowed the researcher to make sense of participants’ own expressed experiences. More specifically, Kelchtermans (2009a, 2009b) aforementioned work around professional self-understanding was employed to explore the personal meaning and significance that practitioners placed upon their interactions with key contextual stakeholders, and how this in turn served to impact and influence their own understanding of their professional self (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b).

Rigor

To ensure rigor and to reflect the philosophical assumptions of an interpretivist research paradigm, a relativist approach to conceptualizing validity was adopted (Burke, 2016; Smith & McGannon, 2018; Sparkes & Smith, 2009). Accordingly, this investigation seeks to demonstrate credibility through a prolonged engagement (eighteen months) with the participants during data collection, and to make a substantive contribution to the contemporary knowledge by increasing our understanding of how practitioners develop their self-perception, and to what extent the interactions with contextual stakeholders influence their sense of self. Also, the present article may hold significant implications for the discipline by giving attention to a novel theoretical lens as a tool to develop practitioners sense-making within their applied contexts. Extensive data excerpts and ‘thick descriptions’ of the contextually situated meanings that practitioners have attributed to their professional experiences are presented to ensure width, and a detailed description of the extensive procedure and data analysis processes seeks to provide transparency. Readers are also invited to judge the resonance and impact of the present article and reflect on whether the findings represent their own interpretations of key interactions that they have had with key stakeholders within the context of their own professional practice. Therefore, the naturalistic and analytical generalizability is best judged by the resemblance of the findings to the reader’s own experiences of working with a range of contextual stakeholders, and how this in turn influences their self-understanding within the specific context of their professional practice.

Results

Following the completion of data analysis, three key themes were generated to illustrate practitioners’ sense-making of their interactions and relationships with contextual stakeholders. These themes were finding one’s place, picking your battles and being seen to do a “good” job.

Findings one’s place

Upon discussing their professional roles and formative experiences, all practitioners interviewed as part of this study expressed their passion and love for sport. Each of the practitioners sampled in the current study had been active within sport because an early age, with their subsequent interest in sport psychology often originating from their own experiences as a competitive/grassroots athlete. In this regard, their current professional roles allowed them to effectively foster an ongoing passion for the sporting world, with Alice reflecting:

I never wake up in the morning thinking “I do not want to do this; I do not want to go in!” I suppose it is because of the enjoyment and the passion for it, so yeah like not feeling like I am coming to work. Like every day is different! I enjoy every day! The challenges that it brings, the challenges of a fast-paced environment and trying to overcome these challenges with a really good group of people. I think that this is a massive part of it. (Alice, Interview 2)

Alice’s comments indicate that alongside the value placed on working within elite sport, she relished an opportunity to work alongside other people. Indeed, several other practitioners described their passion for helping people to develop and achieve personal growth, with practitioners expressing a desire to work effectively with their athletes, whether that be in a direct manner through one-to-one sessions or group workshops, or in a more indirect sense through working with coaches and/or other related stakeholders. Such an approach was underlined by an aspiration to support athletes on their respective career journeys, and to help them maximize their potential, with Jake stating that:

There is a sense of achievement that I get from those roles, from working with a client where they get a breakthrough. It is a feeling that it is a tangible outcome… I am not getting performance related pay, but helping someone to understand why, when they are standing over a putt, they think in a particular way, and this is probably a career changing or life enhancing moment for them. When you see that, the level and sense of achievement. This is beyond anything that they can pay me for assisting with that. (Jake, Interview 6)

It was also apparent that the practitioners in the present study recognized that each professional context was different, and they were required to pay attention to “bespoke detail of how [each] context functions” (Jake, Interview 3). In one such example, Steve suggested:

It is about doing it [service delivery] in a slightly different way and appreciating and understanding that every sport is different. [Understanding] that some sports would like to sit in rooms with spreadsheets for 5 or 6 hours to capture learning and others would like to have a chat over a coffee here and there to progress over the month (Steve, Interview 3).

Whilst the nature of the support they offered may have differed in accordance with the sport in which each practitioner worked and the responsibilities attributed to their specific role, all practitioners collectively repeatedly stressed the importance of considering how they could best contribute to the existing practices of the coaches and other stakeholders they worked alongside. Several practitioners emphasized how they looked to move away from working in isolation, providing one-to-one sessions with the athletes, and attempted to integrate psychology into performance programmes. Correspondingly, it was apparent that practitioners made a significant attempt to better understand the individuals they worked alongside, with Alice suggesting:

I think that is really, really, important to understand other people beliefs and values and how they look up to them. We are very different, and we will need to work together at the end of the day. Some people do not have the same values, and we need to find a way of working together because we are in the same environment. I think that in those situations when someone has a different opinion of what sport psychology is and how it looks like. I think that for me is that understanding of their point of view and where they are coming from. (Alice, Interview 7)

In particular, coaches were identified as key stakeholders who have the most contact with the athletes, and as individuals who may hold a potentially significant role in aiding the athletes’ psychological development. Indeed, supporting coaches in “unlocking” athletes’ psychological potential was identified by practitioners as an important aspect of their role, as summarized here by Alice:

We need to make sure that the coaches have an awareness of what psychological characteristics they want to develop in their sessions—having a psychological outcome is a massive part of their practice. This allows us to ensure the psychology programme is running as soon as they [the players] step through the door, all the way until they leave for a day… I think that one of the focuses for us is to raise the awareness of the staff in terms of their role in the development of the psychological elements of the player (Alice, Interview 4).

Despite the majority of practitioners expressing positive experiences of working with coaches, several examples provided highlighted the potentially turbulent nature of such associations. For example, Tom reflected on his experiences of working alongside a soccer coach:

I suggested things, but it was more “coach is king.” He was doing what he was doing, and whatever I did was separate to that. It was not, how we can collaborate? How can we work together? It was, “Look after your psychology staff, I do not really want to know about it.” He was a big advocate of it and was very keen on it, but he saw it as a separate thing. “You work with the players, and I will coach”. (Tom, Interview 7)

This potential for disagreement when attempting to integrate psychological provision alongside existing coaching practices was exemplified by several practitioners of the present study. The practitioners explained that other professionals often evaluated situations from the perspective of their own discipline, forgetting about athletes’ psychological needs. More specifically, the coaches tend to focus on the technical and tactical aspects of performance, whereas the strength and conditioning coaches put athletes’ physical needs as their main priority. In one such example, Alice described her sense-making of a coaching intervention:

There were occasions when a coach said something that I have fundamentally disagreed with and I disagree with the delivery of it. I remember on one occasion where I was almost really angry with the way he presented this [full-time team talk] and what he was trying to get across to the players. I thought that it was very damaging to some of the players in the room in terms of their overall self-esteem and I thought that it was an overall wrong way to go about the messages that he was sending. In that situation it has a potential to cause a really big clash between him and myself. (Alice, Interview 2)

Such experiences were of particular significance during the early stages of practitioner’s careers. More specifically, several practitioners interviewed within this study “felt very unprepared” (Alice, Interview 1) for the realities of applied practice when they left university. Indeed, the practitioners expressed that early in their career they doubted themselves and their abilities as an applied, or trainee, practitioner. Such insecurities and concerns for self were effectively exaggerated as a result of their relative inexperience of working alongside stakeholders. In one such example, Dan recalled an instance where feedback received from a coach had left him to question their own role, albeit as a result of their own interpretations of less directive interactions with a coach. More specifically, when reflecting on the early stages of his career, Dan recalled:

I would overthink certain conversations. So, if a coach would say, “Look, we do not need this [psychology] today.” I would go away and think, shit, have I, what does that mean? Doesn’t he want me anymore? Doesn’t he want the work? Does he not value it?” In the early days, I would overthink those things. I would go home overthinking certain things. It would then make me come in the next day worrying about it!. (Dan, Interview 1)

The practitioners in the present study recounted similar examples of where they have found themselves on a “tricky ground” (Jake, Interview 7) when trying to offer suggestions as to how to improve existing practices at the club. More specifically, a number of participants recalled how they felt as some key stakeholders could perceive such offering as a “personal attack” (Dan, Interview 3). The potential for “saying the wrong thing” was exemplified by Dan, who recalled an instance whereby:

I was delivering a workshop, and then the coach walked in halfway through. I noticed that the boys [players] had changed. They were very open and honest with me before, and when the coach walked in, they shut off and did not say anything. When I fed this back to the coach, he took it in the wrong way. The coach thought that I was trying to outcast him from psychology workshops, and that this was something that he should not be involved in. Whereas the only thing I was trying to do was to offer him some feedback. Later this week, the players had a video analysis session, and I went in to listen. The coach looked and me and said, “No, I do not want you to be a part of this” (Dan, Interview 4).

Taken collectively, the data presented here can be seen to highlight the significant effort the practitioners made to try and integrate their own applied work alongside the existing practice of numerous key contextual stakeholders. Whilst all practitioners generally felt supported regarding the perceived importance of sport psychology provision within the contexts of their practice, it was apparent that stakeholders’ perceptions of sport psychology played a vital role in practitioners’ ability to work collaboratively at a wider systemic level. Clashes with other key stakeholders were apparent at times, and in such instances, practitioners all highlighted the importance of continually working to further develop or redress their relationships with corresponding individuals, with the ongoing potential for conflict being recognized as a key characteristic of organizational life.

Picking your battles

Whilst the very notion of “finding one”s place” within an organization may have ultimately meant that the practitioners were, at times, somewhat hesitant to challenge the opinions of more established contextual stakeholders, practitioners also gradually came to recognize the importance of putting their own opinions forward, even if that might potentially lead to further debate and potential conflict. Indeed, several practitioners recalled that in order to become an important member of a multidisciplinary team, they had to be prepared to suggest alternative ways of doing things, with Steve reflecting that;

People working in high performance need to be comfortable in dealing with and managing disagreements. People need to be willing to rise their thoughts and challenge others, and they need to be willing to be challenged…If you have a multidisciplinary team meeting and you have a representative of each discipline, you may have 10 or 11 people there. You will not have 10 or 11 people agreeing with you and each aspect…I have been in multidisciplinary team meetings where practitioners had completely polar opposite views. So, you know there is a high level of conflict. You have a physiotherapist that wants to manage the situation one way, you have a strength and conditioning coach that wants to manage the situation completely differently, and you know you have a doctor that wants to measure is completely different. So, you have a lot of conflict in terms of what is going to be the best for the athlete. (Steve, Interview 4)

As such, it was evident that as the practitioners progressed through their career and spent an increased amount of time in a specific context, they started to perceive conflict as a potentially “healthy and useful thing” (Steve, Interview 4), which allowed practitioners to collectively consider the best course of action for a particular athlete or team. Indeed, such collaborative sense-making was particularly evident in an interview with Alice, who recalled:

So, this is the biggest organization I have been working for so far, and the elite environment needs people that can be open and honest…we are almost like a family in the way that we work. You need to be able to disagree on something, but then still be able to work together. Still build work through that and still have a strong relationship, because you spend so much time together. (Alice, Interview 4)

This concept of working together and successfully negotiating conflict however, also required practitioners to effectively assess the broader contextual situation, and utilize their professional judgment, with Jake, acknowledging:

What you are doing you are managing risk. So, most of the times you think “Right, okay, is this the best time to raise this issue?” Especially when it is really obvious who is the key decision maker in this situation. Then, you have to read them and their current state and make a professional judgement. Whether this is the right time or whether you are being foolish in trying to address something that is openly critical or challenging at that point. You know, you got to apply some basic common sense and understanding that moment and how this person is and how amenable they may be to a challenge. If you are not able to do that, then you can get yourself in hot water, where you needed to be a bit more conscious and you were not at a right time. (Jake, Interview 7)

Indeed, several of the practitioners interviewed within this study reiterated the significance of “picking their battles” (Alice, Interview 7) and “weighing up the outcomes” (Jake, Interview 5) of their interactions with the stakeholders, with the longer-term preservation of positive working relationships being identified by Steve as a key factor that needed to be considered:

If you have good relationships with people then it is the importance of your voice of your opinions, with your professional knowledge and your professional skills. [If you have good relationships] then people will listen to you because they actually think “Ah yeah, this guy, yeah, I got on with him really well, he actually knows what he is talking about. I have seen the value he has I have a great relationship with him so I will listen to what he has to say.” I think that this is key for me. (Steve, Interview 5)

The sentiments just outlined were echoed by multiple practitioners and highlighted how the maintenance of positive relationships permitted them to put “own stamp on things” (Alice, Interview 4) when it came to offering their professional expertise as part of the wider multidisciplinary team. It was also suggested that positive relationships could effectively serve to further enhance the actual positioning or “credibility” of psychology within this multidisciplinary context, with Tom who acknowledged that:

I feel like what helped me in that position was creating a good relationship with the coach. So, creating a good relationship with the coach where he valued my input, I think that helped me gained credibility, and therefore sport psychology gained credibility (Tom, Interview 1).

Similarly, Alice reflected how the support she received from her academy manager allowed her to implement an impactful sport psychology programme whilst working with part-time coaches:

This is where I had a really good support from academy manager. We would do workshops; they would take place for the first 15 minutes of training so they would let me do my own input with the coaches before the session. This would take place, and that little tiny bit of time, over time drips in and they [the coaches] make some kind of adjustments. A lot of them got thinking and then you get questions coming to you. I think that really helped, being able to have that support from the manager to say, “Yeah, they can miss the first 15 minutes of training to have that conversation.” This was absolutely valuable, and I think it was one of those things that help to change their perceptions [about sport psychology]. (Alice, Interview 1)

The reflections offered by practitioners here serve to further exemplify the interpersonal and strategic nature of practitioners’ day-to-day interactions with key contextual stakeholders. The potential for conflict and the benefits of effective communication and collaboration between members of multidisciplinary team members were seen to be inherent features of professional life. Furthermore, the manner in which a practitioner could successfully engage in such dialogue and debate was seen to potentially influence their perceived standing within the organization, as well as the overall significance placed upon psychological support within the specific context of their applied practice.

Being seen to do a “good” job

The aforementioned notions of “findings one”s place” and “picking your battles” were found to correspond with the practitioners’ desire make a substantial and impactful contribution to their organizations within their professional roles. Upon reflecting on some of their formative experiences within the field, a number of practitioners expressed how they went “above and beyond” (Dan, Interview 7) to seek to maximize personal developmental opportunities, with all the practitioners sampled demonstrating a desire for continuous learning and self-improvement. Such dedication was particularly evident in Dan’s approach throughout his voluntary experience:

Instead of coming in just one day a week or two days a week, I was there 5 or 6 times a week for 8 or 9 hours a day. I spent a lot of time just being in and around the place and the players, writing notes and reflections. So basically, I was spending time at the [soccer] club instead of with my family and my girlfriend. (Dan, Interview 7)

Whilst personal development was of great importance to the practitioners of the present study however, they also wanted to demonstrate their willingness and commitment to the other stakeholders within their respective settings. Such an awareness of how one’s actions may be perceived by key stakeholders was exemplified by Amy, who recalled an instance whereby:

I was at a wedding. It was probably around 7 p.m. on a Saturday when I got a text from one of the coaches saying, “I cannot get hold of your supervisor and this athlete needs to talk to a psychologist ASAP!” I felt that I needed to show that I was willing to help this athlete… that I am someone who is willing to contribute to the team and be there, be available. (Amy, Interview 5)

Similar dedication was depicted by several other participants interviewed within this study, who anticipated that “doing a good job” might in turn lead to beneficial changes in their applied roles, with Tom reflecting:

I sort of went on the basis of if I can demonstrate my value, if [stakeholders] will see value in this, then they may create a position for me. So, it was always around trying to do a good job really. I always thought that if I will do a good job if I work hard and I show a willingness to have a positive impact on their environment, then that was the only way I would ever get an opportunity and a full-time position. (Tom, Interview 1)

The concept of “doing a good job” was also associated with the significance of mirroring the behaviors and/or attitudes depicted by others in relation to their professional roles. This was particularly apparent within an interview with Alice who recalled how she looked to “match” the commitment of the coaches she worked alongside:

I think that you can see coaches going to extra games and watching the first team games, even if they are not getting that payment for that because they are just trying to push their development and push themselves on that journey… I think that if I want to be immersed into the sport as much as I can, and coaches will go to the first team games, I need to go to those games, watching how the games unfold, and learning about the game… and yeah physios will do the same, and sport science will do the same. I think that when you in the same boat all together you do drive each other on because this is what you expect from each other and you do not want to let each other down is some way. (Alice, Interview 3)

Similar conclusions were made by Steve, who reflected on how he found himself operating alongside highly experienced professionals who were perceived as leaders in their field. When working within such settings, Steve recalled how he found himself in a “stretch territory” where he did not want to let people down and wanted to ensure high quality of the services that he provided. In Steve’s own words:

I was at the holding camp. Everyone out there was so passionate, and you could tell that they were so committed to delivering their best performance! So, you do not mind waking up at 5 a.m. and working all the way through till 10 p.m. because you are a part of the culture where everyone turns up! You know that everyone is prepared to work hard! So, when I was in that holding camp if I had free time, I was reading journal articles. I may be working 13 hours a day, and I will get home, and I will read journal articles. Once we got back from a practice competition at 1 a.m., and I read two journal articles and went to bed at around 2.30 a.m. I was so motivated to develop and to learn because I was surrounded by people that were at an incredible level. (Steve, Interview 2)

Clearly the practitioners sampled within this study were eager to demonstrate their own unique contribution as part of a wider multidisciplinary team, in the hope that their professional commitment would in turn be recognized and valued by other key stakeholders. Whilst it is not accounted for directly within the stories of practice shared here however, the authors of the current paper also wanted to highlight the potential risk to practitioner wellbeing that may arise if individuals find themselves compelled to go “above and beyond” as part of their applied practice. Whilst such devotion to one’s professional role can understandably be seen as a key indicator of effective practice, it is felt to be important that practitioners can ideally assert some control over their respective work-life balance as a means of protecting and preserving their own health and wellbeing.

Whilst the vast majority of applied experiences shared within these interviews portrayed the corresponding practitioners as being valued and integrated members of their wider multidisciplinary teams, some also recalled prior negative experiences whereby stakeholder interactions were negatively impacting upon their own self-perception. This was particularly evident during the earlier stages of practitioners’ careers, where a number of instances highlighted how being questioned and/or undermined by colleagues had negatively affected their self-appraisal at the time. In most cases however, the temporal nature of professional self-understanding meant that they were willing to remain within their roles and seek to positively influence any factors of perceptual issues which were impacting upon their own self-esteem. In one extreme case outlined within this study however, Jake had ultimately realized that his own aspirations for practice would not be matched within one particular applied context, and as such he described how he was willing to leave the role in question, with a view to seeking alternative employment elsewhere:

On one occasion I was going in and I think that it was a three hours’ drive to get to that team. I arranged everything to arrive early and spend a day there. However, they decided that they will take a day off on that day and there was nobody in, including the coaches. At that point I thought, that is not something that you would expect from a system that bought into your service delivery and sort of was acknowledging its relevance. That was the big turning point for me. I did six hours of driving for nothing. It struck me that this was the way things would go, and it was not a high enough priority for them… I had a conversation with the head coach and just said that I did not think that it was working and I thought that it would be better if they would look for someone else for the psych support…I just felt like a bolt on and I was not integrated into that team or into that environment at all…That is a good example where I was in that position where I did not care how much they were paying me. That was not work that I would like to be involved with. I could easily take the money and disappear, and I do not think that they would care much but I think that the professional thing to do was to come out of that situation. (Jake, Interview 2)

Generally, the data presented here suggest that practitioners’ actions within their respective professional roles were often underlined by their own motivation for professional and personal development, as well as highlighting how the perceptions of other key stakeholders could in turn influence how they came to evaluate their own role-related performance and future prospects. It was apparent that practitioners understandably strived to develop a reputation as a knowledgeable, hard-working and dedicated practitioner, capable of delivering high-quality support services. The practitioners sampled for the present study believed that such a representation in the eyes of the key stakeholders would allow them to either progress their career, in terms of securing a paid position and/or a full-time role, or would allow them to establish themselves as an important member of the multidisciplinary team. In some instances, however, the perceived absence of this desired recognition and apparent value to the organization has been shown to lead practitioners to question their desire to remain in a particular role. Indeed, in more extreme circumstances such as those outlined above, practitioners might be even be willing leave a professional position in order to seek more desirable working conditions.

Discussion

The present study sought to further explore the inherently micropolitical nature of applied sport psychology contexts (cf. Rowley et al., 2018), and to consider how experiences of working with a range of contextual stakeholders influenced trainee, and qualified, sport psychologists professional self-understanding (cf. Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). The stories of practice presented here illustrate how a practitioner’s interactions with key stakeholders, and their perceived understanding of wider contextual and organizational factors, can in turn influence their own professional self-understanding. The key themes presented, highlight the apparent importance of finding one’s place within a particular applied context, picking your battles when choosing to engage in conflict and dialogue with other key stakeholders, and being seen to do a “good” job when reflecting on how one’s own role-related performance is assessed and evaluated by others. Taken collectively, these themes can be seen to reflect the dynamic and temporal nature of professional self-understanding (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b), whereby the very act of “telling” has enabled the practitioners interviewed within the current study to offer valuable insight into their own self-perception, in association with the contexts of their applied sport psychology practice. It is proposed that such insight can help further develop understanding as to how sport psychology practitioners successfully operate within the often stressful, pressurized, competitive and success-orientated contexts of their applied practice (Brady & Maynard, 2010; Nesti, 2010; Reid et al., 2004; Williams & Andersen, 2012; Woodman & Hardy, 2001).

At a fundamental level, practitioners “job motivation” and “task perception” (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b) were underlined by passion for working with people in a sporting context and the responsibility to help athletes achieve personal growth. This can be seen to reflect the idea that applied sport psychology is not a neutral, technical endeavor, but implies value-laden choices, moral consideration, and ethical stances (cf. Chandler et al., 2014; Friesen & Orlick, 2010; Gilbourne & Richardson, 2006). However, the importance of finding one’s place, highlighted practitioners’ shared appreciation that the very nature of their applied work should alter to meet the specific requirements of the role that they held at that particular time. In particular, the viewpoints of others were seen to play a critical role in helping to define the parameters of practitioners’ practice. Such sentiments are in keeping with Tod et al. (2007) conceptualization of service-delivery competence, which was depicted as a multidimensional process that required the practitioner to meet the clients’ needs and expectations, and develop and maintain mutually beneficial relationships, alongside their attempts to successfully apply disciplinary knowledge in an appropriate professional manner.

Indeed, numerous practitioners highlighted the perceived importance of developing and maintaining good relationships with key contextual stakeholders, potentially to further advance the broader perception and perceived standing of sport psychology support within the organization. Such aspirations for practice can be seen to develop understanding as to how contextual stakeholders might impact on the sense of self that practitioners develop (Cropley et al., 2007; Lindsay et al., 2007; Rowley et al., 2012). More specifically, such insight is indicative of how the perception of others can influence practitioner’s own “self-image” (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). Such sense-making was particularly evident in practitioners efforts’ of being seen to do a “good” job, where the significance of going “above and beyond” (i.e., working outside of their contracted hours) served to not only show practitioners’ commitment and attempts to mirror the apparent dedication shown by their colleagues, but also their hope of potentially advancing their own positioning within the organization. Such behaviors could be seen as an indication of their “future perspectives” (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b), with a number of practitioners suggesting that they immersed themselves into their roles in the hope of securing additional opportunities for further employment as their careers progressed.

Whilst the practitioners sampled here largely spoke of their relative success in working effectively alongside multiple key contextual stakeholders, a number of them also acknowledged the potential for disagreements and conflict when working as part of a multidisciplinary team. Indeed, such factors were often portrayed as being a fundamental and necessary component of organizational life. As such, practitioners outlined a necessity to develop a level of comfort amidst such interpersonal dynamics, with the manner in which they were able to successfully articulate their own viewpoints, and their ability to recognize wider contextual considerations when picking their battles, being seen as key components of effective practice. The ability to identify when to engage in potentially disruptive situations appears to be a salient attribute, particularly as practitioners might often find themselves in settings prone to competition and conflict between stakeholders (Reid et al., 2004). Indeed, it was acknowledged that practitioners coexisting within the same organizations may often have different opinions and may differ in their interpretation of the problem and the appropriate solution (Reid et al., 2004). Understandably, several instances highlighted that practitioners within the current study had felt challenged or undermined by colleagues, which will likely have negatively affected their “self-esteem” (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b).

Therefore, the accounts of practice presented here add to the emerging sport psychology literature that explores how practitioners constantly construct, and reconstruct, their sense of self in relation to encountered situations (Tod et al., 2020; Wagstaff & Quartiroli, 2020). Also, while acknowledging that such sense-making is influenced by past experiences and future expectations (Tod et al., 2020), the findings presented here serve to illuminate the significant influence that interpersonal relationships with key contextual stakeholders can directly have upon a practitioner’s professional self-understanding. Such findings, in turn, may hold significant implications within sport psychology in relation to the professional growth of applied practitioners (e.g., McEwan et al., 2019; Tod et al., 2007, 2011, 2017). In particular, Although researchers have previously acknowledged the influence of high-performance culture (cf. Eubank et al., 2014, 2017; McDougall et al., 2015, 2019) on practitioners’ sense of self (e.g., Champ et al., 2020; Tod et al., 2020), the present study further illustrates how stakeholder recognition (or lack thereof) might also considerably influence practitioners’ sense-making of themselves and their role-related performance and development. Therefore, the proposed conceptualization of professional self-understanding (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b) may hold significant implications for the discipline by providing an increased understanding of how practitioners perceive their interactions and experiences with key stakeholders, as well as how they ultimately make sense of situations, interpret them, and how they decide on what to do and how to act (Kelchtermans, 2018).

The present article therefore, adds to the previous findings reported within sport psychology literature, illuminating further that becoming a member of an organization is not a passive process of sliding into an existing context but rather an interactive and ongoing relational endeavor which can, in turn, strongly influence a practitioner’s professional self-understanding. Also, Although Mellalieu (2017) highlighted how an understanding of the sporting context might allow applied practitioners to clarify working relationships with the various stakeholders regarding consent and sharing of confidential information, the present article illustrated how interactions with significant others might impact practitioners’ abilities to provide a dissenting voice, or alternative opinions (McDougall et al., 2015). Indeed, Although recognizing that attempting to integrate oneself into an elite sporting organization might be like “bringing a knife to a gunfight” (Larsen, 2017, p. 127), the present study may serve to better support practitioners who feel challenged or undermined by colleagues, and seek to identify when to challenge, and ultimately enhance their ability to maintaining an overall positive assessment of their own role-related performance.

More specifically, the recognition of the temporal nature of professional self-understanding and the dynamic balance between “self-image” (i.e., what I am doing within my role) and “task perception” (i.e., what I ought to be doing to do a good job), may serve to help support neophyte practitioners’ appreciation of their actual job performances, in turn serving to decrease their experiences of anxiety and self-doubt in a temporally reflective manner (cf. Tod et al., 2007, 2020). The present study may also help practitioners to seek to better manage their interpersonal relationships with key stakeholders by “picking their battles” and seeking to positively influence any factors of perceptual issues that were impacting their own self-esteem (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). Overall, by increasing practitioner’s professional self-understanding, the present study holds the potential for helping practitioners of all levels of experience enhance their ability to “survive and thrive” within the applied practice (Gilmore et al., 2018; McDougall et al., 2015).

Implications for practice

Insights offered within the current article have gone some way toward illuminating the often contested, and potentially ambiguous, nature of applied sport psychology practice, and echo the importance of a practitioner working to receive “buy in” from the key stakeholders with whom they work (Eubank et al., 2014). As with any professional occupation, the acknowledgement that sport psychologists do (or do not) receive social recognition from others, can potentially influence our own role-related performance and satisfaction, and in that respect, such recognition can be viewed as a “gift” which one receives from others, albeit in a temporary and partial manner (Kelchtermans, 2018). As such, readers of the current article are encouraged to examine their own day-to-day interactions with key stakeholders in a purposeful and meaningful manner, and to reflect upon how such encounters may have subsequently served to—either positively or indeed negatively—shape their own professional self-understanding.

Upon acknowledgement of self-perception and recognition from others as being fundamental factors in shaping a practitioner’s sense of self within their professional roles, key challenges are also highlighted for the professional bodies and academic institutions who seek to train and prepare neophyte practitioners for the everyday demands and requirements of successful applied sport psychology practice. Several of the stories shared within this article demonstrated early career practitioners felt largely unprepared for the social and interpretative encounters that they held with a vast array of differing contextual stakeholders. Practitioners of all experience levels should ideally endeavor to develop a comprehensive theoretical and tacit knowledge of applied contexts however, to help them better seek to meet the demands of such complex and changeable environments (Sly et al., 2020). As such, practitioners should actively engage in ongoing learning and the development of “contextual intelligence,” supported by professional bodies via education, case study analyses, and experiential learning processes (Sly et al., 2020). The theoretical lens adopted within the present study, can provide a theoretical basis to help scaffold developmental activities relating to professional self-understanding, micropolitical activity, and contextual understanding. As such, we hope that this article will stimulate further debate and discussion among academics and professional accreditation bodies as to how some of the more tacit and experiential aspects of applied practice can be better developed in the absence of actual lived experience. One key consideration would be to encourage (or indeed compel) students and trainee practitioners to increase their exposure to—and their engagement with—other fields and professions, so that they can become more comfortable with translating the significance of their own work to those in the wider allied professions (McCalla & Fitzpatrick, 2016).

Conclusion

The findings of the present study suggest that a sport psychology practitioner’s professional self-understanding should be seen as the result of an ongoing, evolving and dynamic process of self- and contextual- evaluation. The interpretations of reflective accounts highlighted that practitioners’ deliberating, judging and choosing how to act was underlined by their ongoing concern and striving for social recognition (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). Being acknowledged and valued was identified as one of the fundamental concerns throughout practitioners’ careers, and was directly related to the development of self-understanding (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009a, 2009b), and the maintenance of a socially valued understanding of oneself as a desired working condition (cf. Kelchtermans, 1996).

Considering that working conditions are encountered, rather than chosen or constructed (Kelchtermans, 1996), future research should seek to examine how practitioners look to navigate or influence their respective working conditions through their interactions with key stakeholders. In particular, by acknowledging that social recognition depends on others’ perceptions and can therefore be easily questioned or withdrawn (Kelchtermans, 1996), further research investigating professional vulnerability (Kelchtermans, 1996) may enhance understanding of how practitioners experience their respective contexts of applied practice.