I had a great honor on Monday, as I was able to promote the profession of sports psychologist at the Talent Center Conference held in Szeged. The one-and-a-half-hour lecture was given by Péter Kovács, head coach of the U14 youth team, which was based on our joint research and was entitled "Sports psychologist on the football pitch". I started by asking the professionals present what tasks they think a sports psychologist can perform. A word cloud was created about the answers, which contains the comments of more than 100 coaches. Then I presented how I have been working at our academy for almost three years as a future sports psychologist.
The main profile of my work is aimed at coaches. In the framework of professional days, I primarily deal with the personality development of coaches. In addition, I regularly participate in age group section meetings, where I respond to current problems from a sports psychology point of view. As a result of the trust that has developed, the coaches of our academy regularly come to me for individual counseling, and I also conduct training observations, periodically giving feedback on my experiences. Finally, the coaches of the given team can also participate in the sessions of the age-group teams, if they have a need for it.
I believe in it, the team is the mirror of the coach, which is why many problems can be faced if the professional is also mentally fine. This is where I see my greatest role, as an authentic representative of the sports psychology profession.
My other tasks in sports psychology include individual counseling, which is basically attended by players as well as coaching colleagues. This also includes parenting consultations.
Another big area is the age-group team activities, where teams from U12 to U19 take part. Team building and joint revision of current problems can be considered the main processes in this area.
External lecturers also participate in our periodic parents' academy programs, most recently Orsolya Moravcsik-Fecskés gave an interactive presentation on the topic of mobile phone addiction.
Finally, computer psychological assessments are also part of my work, which I do periodically using the Vienna Test System.
From the listed areas, it can also be seen how complex a service a professional involved in the life of a academy and performing sports psychology work can provide.
During the presentation, I also presented our sports psychology process with the U14 team. In addition to exercises aimed at developing self-confidence and solving performance anxiety, we also dealt with the issue of improving communication between players and adapting to different game situations. At the conference, I presented the steps of our joint work in detail. As a first step, we created the group rules, then we explored the problem situation together. After that, by appointing the leaders and clarifying the roles, we were able to focus on solving the current problems, monitoring the change from time to time.
Finally, I ended the presentation by saying that as sports psychologists, we study for seven years in the framework of university education, which is by far the longest process in the case of the training of mental preparation professionals. Accordingly, it is worthwhile for academy leaders to act carefully before employing a sports psychologist, coach, or mental trainer.
