Self-Care for the Sport Psychologist

Researchers have recently acknowledged and explored the stress that practitioners experience in the challenging applied sport psychology environment, and the impact that this can have on both the physical and mental well-being of the individual. As a consequence there is a clear need for individual practitioners to develop self-care strategies to not only assist their ability to cope with these challenges, but also to ensure their ethical responsibilities to themselves, their client, and their professional accrediting bodies. Until recently the self-care of practitioners has been largely overlooked in favour of the welfare of their client, raising the question of ‘Who will protect the practitioner?’ Self-care has been characterized as ‘an awareness of one’s own needs and an ability to proactively and engage in behaviours and activities that enable the practitioner to effectively support themselves’. Drawing on psychotherapy and counselling research, this chapter will discuss several models and self-care interventions designed to assist practitioners to both develop and monitor their own well-being while working in the unique environment of applied sport psychology.