ABSTRACT
Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) athletes have received little attention in the sport psychology literature to date, whilst self-acceptance and athletic attainment have been a focus in martial arts more widely for some time and discussed by elite athlete Bruce Lee (e.g., Little, 1996). However, MMA is relatively new in terms of being recognized as an official sport, and therefore there is no research documenting the use of REBT with this population. This chapter focuses on a semi-professional MMA athlete, aged 21, who was having difficulty attaining his next goal of becoming a professional MMA athlete. REBT was selected for this individual after a needs analysis revealing the presence of irrational beliefs and, in particular, self-depreciation beliefs. Also, the client displayed low levels of unconditional self-acceptance. The REBT intervention involved four 45-minute sessions. Overall, REBT had a positive effect on the athlete’s adoption of rational beliefs and his capacity for unconditional self-acceptance. He had stopped solely focusing on how far he was from his end goal and instead was able to focus on making incremental changes in training. This allowed him to focus on the process of becoming an elite athlete where previously he was trying to attain the highest level of performance but consistently failing to reach this.
