ABSTRACT
Because there are many ways in which we can apply psychology to sport and given the wide range of activities that different cultures regard as sport, we need to adopt quite a broad definition of sport psychology. In 1996 the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) produced such a broad definition which, slightly simplified, reads: Sport psychology is the study of the psychological basis, processes and effects of sport. The term ‘sport’ is used, both in the FEPSAC definition of sport psychology and throughout this book, in the broad sense, including any physical activity for the purposes of competition, recreation, education or health. Psychology can be defined as ‘the science of mind and behaviour’ (Gross 1996).
